


The Long Way Down

by gyruum



Series: Pink and Yellow [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Character Study, F/F, F/M, Fantasizing, Masochism, Masturbation, Shame, Urination, Watersports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-09-24 22:03:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20365813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyruum/pseuds/gyruum
Summary: Quinn discovers a new way to punish herself during her Skank days.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set entirely during the timeline of episodes 3.01-3.02. It serves as one possible imagining of what Quinn was going through during her Skank phase and how she got from point A to B. Direct references to canon conversations are marked with links to those scenes on YouTube. 
> 
> All lyrics are from "Long Way Down" by Robert DeLong.
> 
> This is a sequel to my story "Fire Door." Read that first.

_So take it in, don't hold your breath_  
_ The bottom's all I found_  
_ We can't get higher than we get_  
_ On the long way down_

Her plan was going so well, too.

Eleven days into senior year, and Quinn Fabray is no longer recognizable. The Cheerios don’t even look at her anymore, except to gawk when she pushes the boundaries of McKinley’s dress code another inch, or three. Gone are the babydoll dresses in Easter pastels, now replaced by tattered black t-shirts with the occasional apathetic catchphrase.

Her beautiful blonde hair is dull and damaged, put mercilessly through the wringer as Ronnie tried no fewer than five over-the-counter brands on Quinn in two weeks. But the color was wrong, or it didn’t survive a wash as advertised, or it just looked like shit, so they bleached it out and did it again. Rinse and repeat. Now there’s no point in blow-drying because it just does whatever it wants, anyway.

Even Quinn’s hair is rebelling.

What her new friends don’t know is that when they part ways after a typical evening of loitering and casual misdemeanors, Quinn fucks herself in the ass in the shower, letting drops of the silicon-based lube mix and swirl at her feet before slipping down the drain along with the other layers of her day—the runny trails of eyeliner and mascara, the desperately clinging cigarette stench, the shame that she let herself become _this_, and the weight of disappointment from everyone she knows. It collects, day after day—the faint orange rings around the tub, the spots on the shower door, the shedded pieces of her body slowly gathering in the drain.

Quinn wonders if there’s any real reason to bathe at all, when the filth simply remains.

It might be for the best. She’s not actually “allowed” to shower, according to the code of her hygienically disinclined associates, but Quinn disregards that. Rebelling against the rebels makes her a square again, so she’s careful not to use too much soap and give herself away. She doesn’t worry much. The nightly ritual is more or less just a cover for her real purpose anyway, which is anything but cleanliness.

Not long after purchasing the hot pink dildo—the one that has nothing to do with Rachel and everything to do with Rachel—Quinn became paranoid of her mother walking in on her bedroom sessions. After a particularly close call around Labor Day, she was forced to relocate to the bathroom. It’s less comfortable this way, and harder, and more dangerous, and she has to choose between standing for a better angle with one hand clutching the safety bar or bruising her knees on the shower floor to attend to her aching clit instead. Nothing comes easily—including Quinn Fabray—but she pushes through the pain, because it’s why she’s doing this in the first place, week after week, time after time.

Rinse and repeat.

_R__epeat until clean_, the directions say on the green shampoo bottle sitting in the corner. Her mother bought it for her after the third failed color treatment. Quinn hasn’t used it. But she does read the small black words, if only because she wonders why they exist. People fucking know what shampoo is for. She stares at the three words while she fucks herself and wonders why anyone would need them, wonders what value they are adding to the people who look at them.

It hits too close to home. Quinn focuses instead on the seven inches deep in her ass.

_Repeat until clean_

Maybe that’s why she can’t stop. The shower’s been on for a while, but this isn’t making her any cleaner.

And maybe that’s why visions of Rachel’s face keep haunting her.

Rachel’s been there from the start. Even when Quinn was using Puck to provide her fill, it was Rachel’s voice she heard, Rachel’s eyes watching her, wanting her, judging her. Pleading Quinn to stop doing this to herself. So instead, Quinn imagined doing it to her. Rachel seemed to like that better, maybe because Quinn looked less sad when she was pulling Rachel’s hair, touching her, tasting her, and fucking Rachel’s perfect ass until neither of them could move anymore.

Quinn liked it better, too.

Sure, it wasn’t real, but she still took pride in rendering Rachel functionless. The rhythmic, jagged breathing against the mattress was vastly preferable to Rachel’s pleading words about _feelings_. It was the best (and only) way to shut her up.

Eventually, when Puck’s presence became more and more annoying, Quinn learned to handle her needs on her own, but always to the tune of Rachel’s desperation and desire and disapproval. Then, it escalated to name-calling, to demeaning words and phrases reinforcing not just what a terrible thing Quinn’s doing, but what a terrible person she is. Arousal built to anger, desire to resentment.

Rinse and repeat.

But lately, something has changed. Instead of fantasies of passion, she delves further into the pain.

While Quinn’s arm pumps in circles, the vision of Rachel sits fully clothed a few feet away, distant and sad and quiet. She has nothing left to say and no interest in participating. Rachel’s just tired. Not even mad—simply bored. She stares at her fingernails or digs through the bathroom cabinets, waiting for Quinn to finish already so she can leave and get back to her imaginary life with her imaginary boyfriend.

Quinn hasn’t lost interest in Rachel—she knows that isn’t it. Maybe subconsciously she doesn’t think she deserves to touch Rachel like that anymore. Maybe her mind refuses to fuck someone who hates her so much, even as a fantasy. Or maybe she can no longer believe any version of Rachel could _want_ to engage with her. It stings, and she refuses to accept it even as Rachel is slipping further and further from her.

Quinn wants to reach out but doesn’t dare stop what she has started. Instead, she moves her hands faster, pushes harder and deeper, mentally crying out for Rachel’s attention, screaming to be noticed. She’s sore as hell, her muscles are aching, and she’s nowhere near a climax. It’s not working like it’s supposed to.

Quinn can’t play her role without a partner. There’s no skin to dig her fingernails into, no vicious words of disapproval to fight against, nothing left to give to Rachel or take from her. The utter ambivalence keeps them miles apart in the tiny room. She’s alone in this but can’t bring herself to stop.

She doesn’t know who she is without this.

When she can’t handle the images behind her eyelids anymore, Quinn blinks against the bright light of the bathroom. It’s a sobering reality, lying wet and naked on a grimy tub floor as the jets pound down, unrelenting, like the goddamn loop in her head.

And now the water is uncomfortably cold. Again. It’s a familiar reminder—not to give up and get out, but to apply more lube. She’s not a fucking quitter. The slickness feels good, and it’s reducing the drag and burn of her sensitive skin, but Quinn doesn’t let her eyes stray closed again. Not when Rachel’s done giving a shit about her.

She focuses instead on a bolded subtitle on the shampoo bottle: **Damaged**. It’s a reminder of what she is now, down to her core. What she will always be.

She’s _supposed_ to feel broken.

Her skin squeaks against the smooth, white fiberglass as she repositions herself and turns the silver knob a few degrees counter-clockwise. Blinking against the spray, Quinn doesn’t look away from the label as she works the pink silicone in and out and in and out. She already knows she won’t be coming tonight. It doesn’t matter.

The hot water heater surrenders before her aching muscles do. It’s been nearly an hour, and the last thing she wants is for her mother to notice and come looking for her. Quinn sighs and relents, withdraws and rinses, turning both knobs hard with a jilted screech. The sensation of pressure against her skin hums for a moment before it fades away, then the harsh cold settles in.

Sliding the opaque door, Quinn emerges from her secret room of self-punishment empty and sore and anything but clean. She runs the white towel over her body, noticing it becoming heavier the more she uses it. Quinn only feels the weight of the water now that it’s off of her, now that it’s held in her hands.

She can’t help wondering what else she’s carrying that she won’t feel until it leaves.

_Friends. _

_Family._

_Potential._

_God._

But those things are already long gone, she knows. The pockets of her heart are filled with heavier stones now.

_Expectation._

_Guilt._

_Shame._

_Sin._

She flinches.

_Rachel._

She drops the wet towel to the ground, but Quinn’s hardly naked. There in the mirror she sees the pink hair, the black fingernails and nose ring, the ridiculous ink on her back, the glazed eyes unwilling to let anyone in—all components of her latest persona. As long as she wears this costume, she doesn’t have to be real. It doesn’t matter if she actually likes this new version of herself. This is what she has chosen. This is the fortress she has built. Stopping now would be a surrender, and that’s not an option. She’s moving forward and not looking back.

Quinn hurts herself so no one else can. That’s the plan. That’s always _been_ the plan. And it’s working. It _is._

She stares into her own reflection, looking for the tiny cracks she feels creeping into the façade.

_“I’ll still care about you, Quinn.”_

Her knuckles tense against the marble countertop as she pushes the familiar voice aside.

_Goddamnit._

********

Quinn knows better than to stand outside the back door of the auditorium after school—if she’s avoiding Rachel, which she usually is. That first Thursday of the year, however, she was willing to take her chances.

The Glee Club was holding open auditions. She only knew about it in the first place because Mack made fun of it, which Quinn doesn’t care about because she isn’t going back to Glee. She’s making sure of that by sabotaging her singing voice, doing something Rachel Berry would find so abhorrent that she would grimace and scowl and tell Quinn ‘what a terrible thing she’s doing to her body, to her _future_.’ As if Quinn would give a shit about either of those things anymore. She _doesn’t_. She just needs Rachel’s rejection. Without it, her new identity is just makeup and denim—powder and thread when she wants stone and steel.

So, Quinn needed the smoke shield, that enforced distance between herself and Rachel. Fortunately, Mack keeps a carton of menthol Virginia Slim 100s buried in the couch under the bleachers. They taste disgusting, and she isn’t the type to need or appreciate a nicotine buzz, but after the first few, she got used to it. There are worse ways to pass the time than silently absorbing carcinogens with the Skanks. Quinn made a new habit of it without revealing why. It certainly isn’t for their conversation skills.

She wondered how long it would take to get noticed. Maybe one of the other Glee members would see her first and tell her what a pathetic loser she’s become. Maybe Mr. Schue would step out instead and threaten to call her parents while bemoaning how far she’s fallen. Maybe she’d tell him off and flick her cigarette right at his butt-chin and get suspended. So many possibilities.

The downward spiral of her life is fully in motion, and Quinn’s not about to step in front of a moving train. So, either someone else will, or, eventually, she’ll crash.

She’s ambivalent to both results.

It’s why she doesn’t bring in the butts anymore when she smokes on her mother’s back deck. Or why she took Sheila’s bet and got the stupid Ryan Seacrest tattoo just before school started, even though she didn’t need the money she won (which Sheila had probably just stolen from Quinn’s bag). It’s only a matter of time, but when Quinn’s parents eventually find the smarmy face on her lower back, there won’t be anything they can do.

Some damage is permanent.

Nothing will change, other than the growing disdain for their daughter. Like when they discover she’s not going to class anymore during her precious, all-important senior year. Or when they notice the lipstick-stained cotton filters outside, one for each moment Quinn wanted to distance herself further from Glee club. Or when they figure out Quinn’s not straight.

Which is _also_ thanks to Rachel Fucking Berry.

Who, wearing her best argyle sweater for the occasion, stepped out the back door after Glee auditions that goddamn Thursday and finally caught Quinn smoking with the Skanks.

Quinn would never admit she’d had them stand there on purpose, which she did, or that she’d chain-smoked three in a row to be sure one was burning when Rachel emerged. Quinn’s not about to admit anything concerning Rachel Berry at all.

Rachel immediately cowered under Ronnie’s glare but saw Quinn and recovered, smoothing her skirt with both hands to survey the scene. “Oh. Hello. I didn’t know anyone was back here.”

“Then maybe _you_ shouldn’t be,” Sheila growled.

Rachel stood her ground and composed herself. “We were having auditions for Glee club. As a member of the voting committee, I have every right to use this exit.” Her eyes found the freshly lit cigarette in Quinn’s hand and lingered there before drifting up to her face.

Mission accomplished.

But Quinn didn’t look back at her. She couldn’t. With a skillful flick of her thumb, she looked away at the last second to watch a chunk of ash silently fall from her forty-cent weapon. She’d put herself in this position but now had no idea what to say. Like an idiot.

For a moment, neither girl moved. Distant sounds of car doors and teenage voices became more noticeable as the awkward tension grew. But Quinn was going to wait her out. She was always waiting for Rachel, one way or another.

Rachel waved a hand around to clear the smoke before taking a deep, steadying breath as she prepared to break the silence.

Quinn just prepared to be broken.

She wanted Rachel’s disapproval. She _needed_ it. Why the hell else would she have come if not to hear the words she’s been missing? For two months she’d just fantasized, but now Quinn could actually have the real thing. Some version of it, anyway. Quinn’s head was already buzzing with the rush, though that could’ve been the surplus of stimulants coursing through her veins. She took another long drag and braced for impact.

_Tell me I’m not good enough._

_Please. Do it._

_Break me._

“I hoped maybe I’d see you in there,” Rachel said with a half-smile. Right on cue.

There was a long pause, and Quinn didn’t dare to look, but she could sense Rachel’s expression shifting into sadness. Her heart pounded with anticipation.

“No matter what choices you make,” Rachel continued softly, “or…what you do to yourself…I’ll still care about you, Quinn.”

Quinn didn’t mean to look into Rachel’s eyes. She really didn’t. She exhaled a burst of toxic air but then forgot how to take more oxygen in.

“And I know that underneath all your sadness,” Rachel added, “you still care about us, too.”

“THE HELL SHE DOES!” Sheila screamed, scaring Rachel away. “Get the fuck out of here!”

But the damage was already done.

Rachel doesn’t hate her at all. And those two stupid sentences have been ringing in Quinn’s ears for over a week now.

They’re ruining everything.

After two months, Quinn’s made peace with…her preferred means of being penetrated. (She can like the act without liking the term for it.) It feels natural to her, instinctual. Once she became accustomed to the physical sensations, it was the lingering sense of shame and disapproval from Rachel—the imaginary one, anyway—that made her feel so delightfully bad. But now, that’s been taken from Quinn, too.

And she’s realizing all too late that she never had any power in the situation. She gave it all to Rachel—the _real_ Rachel—who’s now throwing it back in her face, reminding Quinn that she herself is the cause of all her problems.

Quinn feels tremors of weakness creeping up the walls of her fortress. She sees the corners begin to crumble, and all she can do is retreat further into herself.

_Fuck you, Rachel._

Quinn doesn’t want to be friends. She doesn’t know how. She can’t sit at the lunch table and talk about math homework with a girl she fantasizes about fucking senseless—aggressively, painfully—on a weekly basis. She doesn’t know how to give a sincere smile and wave down the hall when the night before she envisioned digging those fingers into Rachel’s collarbone to pull one more inch deeper into her ass.

It feels more real to picture Rachel dripping sweat and tears and arousal on her white 300-count sheets, not standing eye to eye offering Quinn forgiveness in front of her friends. It feels more real to remember Rachel calling her a pathetic, self-absorbed slut, night after night after night, than to say she genuinely cares for her.

That’s the Rachel she knows, the one she’s worked so hard to create that has started drifting away. That’s the Rachel she _needs_.

Because otherwise, it means Quinn’s fucked everything up for nothing.

She can’t come back from this. She can’t pretend she hasn’t spent the last _two months_ like this—thinking these things, doing these things. She made the choice to objectify Rachel Berry as a way of coping, because Quinn sure as shit was never going to get something real with her. Maybe there was a time when she could, long before that first day at Puck’s, long before her pain crawled its way to the outside for everyone to see. But the moment Rachel kissed Finn at Nationals, Quinn took any hope of Rachel ever loving her like that and buried it six inches inside her, pounded in deep over and over, well out of her reach.

Any damage can be permanent if you try hard enough.

But here come those _words_, Rachel’s fucking _words_, bringing hope and forgiveness when Quinn’s only taking in poison and smoke, and that’s what is suffocating her. She doesn’t want to hate Rachel—she needs Rachel to hate _her_, not give her carte blanche like she’s Mother Fucking Teresa.

Quinn Fabray needs to be unforgivable. She _needs_ it. If only because she can’t bear the thought of Rachel actually loving her like…like _this_—this dirty shell of a person she’s become.

She’ll just have to try harder.

_Fuck you, Rachel._


	2. Chapter 2

_ [I’ve been smoking the poison, you've been slinging your anecdotes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnlvKkUUL5c) _

She doesn’t shower for three days. There just doesn’t seem to be any point.

Quinn decides to go the whole week without seeing Rachel, fictional or otherwise. It was significantly easier in the summer when they weren’t trapped in the same building together, but a successful day now is worth the effort. Quinn can’t risk revealing any further weakness, any more cracks in her castle walls, not until she devises new means to reinforce them. If Rachel so much as whispered her name the wrong way, Quinn’s entire kingdom might come tumbling down. With everything to lose, she has no choice but to withdraw and regroup.

So, naturally, Rachel ambushes her under the bleachers on Monday.

The conversation probably lasts no more than ninety seconds, but it feels like hours. When Rachel announces her approach, Quinn hesitates. Maybe Rachel’s changed her mind and has come to deliver a prepared lecture on the dangers of smoking after all. Maybe things are going poorly with Finn and it’ll only take a few pointed comments from Quinn to push her over the edge and make her lash out. If Quinn can pull herself together, she can regain control of the situation and get the reaction she wants.

She takes her time lighting her cigarette, stalling. And then Rachel says, “We were friends once.”

With that _look_.

Quinn doesn’t hear the next five things Rachel says. It takes all her strength to steel herself, for her weakness to take cover as she’s sitting exposed, waiting for the words to stop flying at her like arrows.

How does Rachel not see that she’s only making this harder?

Quinn needs this to be over. _Now. _In one sentence. If she allows herself any more than that, she’ll erupt, and it won’t stop. She’ll drown.

“I’m not coming back to Glee Club.”

It won’t be enough, and she knows it, but it’s the best she can give without falling apart.

Rachel keeps talking. Filling the space between them with the kind of things Quinn wanted to hear before she became this. The kind of things Quinn wanted to hear before Rachel chose Finn.

_“We’re a family…We need you…It’s our year to get it right.”_

She casts line after line, but the waters are empty. Quinn’s just not there, not really. Not the Quinn Rachel’s looking for.

And that’s when Quinn realizes that Rachel truly doesn’t understand just what she’s become. The Quinn she knew is gone.

_“I’m sorry you’re so sad, Quinn.”_

_Fuck you, Rachel._

_You don’t know the first thing about how I feel._

_I don’t want to feel _anything_ anymore._

Rachel finally closes out her pitch and turns away, leaving Quinn holding another cloud of smoke in her lungs.

Quinn hadn’t realized she stopped breathing. She exhales and watches Rachel walk off, clinging to this image she so desperately needs—Rachel giving up on her. Walking away and leaving her there. Quinn commits it to memory and tries to scrub out all the words that came before. She knows they will haunt her as much as that brief moment outside the auditorium has. 

_“Whenever you’re ready.”_

For a split second, she imagines herself back in the Glee club—dancing, singing, happy, surrounded by familiar faces.

It’s jarring, remembering that feeling of being safe and loved, and she instantly regrets it. But it’s too late; the damage is done. She feels the sting of tears behind her eyes, and another wall crumbles. The deafening sounds fill her ears, and it takes all her energy to conceal what’s happening. Rachel’s gone, but Quinn still has to get out of here. She’s too scared to speak, to blink, to move. If she’s not in fact paralyzed, crushed under the bricks of her own emotions, Quinn doesn’t trust her feet will carry her someplace safe.

Where are you supposed to go when the person you’re running from is yourself?

The other girls reconvene on the couch behind her, mapping out the night’s typical showcase of stealing eyeliner from the mall and finding a horny frat boy to buy them cheap vodka for the undelivered promise of a handjob.

_“Hey! Belinda.” _

Sheila’s voice sounds a mile away. The reference to Rachel’s comment about her so-called _glamour_ only pulls into focus that Quinn’s still standing here, facing the direction of Rachel’s exit.

She gives herself thirty more seconds. She can hold it together. She has to.

Quinn turns and says, “Later,” with as much apathy as she can muster, then fires her half-used cigarette in Sheila’s general direction.

_…7…8…_

Her feet are carrying her away from them, away from Rachel, away from everything, and she’s _trying_ to move slowly so they won’t come after her, so they won’t see she’s falling apart right in front of them, but Quinn doesn’t have any walls to hide behind anymore.

Rachel saw to that.

_Fuck you, Rachel._

_Fuck you for doing this to me._

_…23…24…_

But Quinn’s crying before she reaches the end of the bleachers. The pain isn’t stopping, so neither does she.

********

It’s a long walk around the back of the school to reach the parking lot, but at least her combat boots are up to the task. The air is sprinkled with the distant shrill of whistles from the football field and humming cars along the road beyond the track. Everything seems a world away except the crunching of gravel and sticks under her feet.

She turns a corner where the brick ends and the aluminum walls of the gym begin, and stops suddenly at the sight of another student. A boy she doesn’t recognize from behind, probably a freshman, is standing close to the wall with his back facing her and his arms out of view. He doesn’t seem to notice she’s there. Still, Quinn stops instinctively to assess whether or not he’s a threat in any way.

His position is still and seems awkward, but then a faint buzzing against the hollow wall reveals his intentions. Quinn sees a darkened line appear against the beige panel, visible between his legs as the stream trickles down, and she cringes in disgust.

Teenage boys are so fucking gross.

She keeps moving, crossing his periphery as she passes, and the boy curses in surprise when he sees her. He scurries off in the opposite direction, stuffing his dick back in his pants. But Quinn really couldn’t care less.

She’s already trying so hard not to care about anything else.

Four minutes later, she’s zig-zagging past the various mid-nineties Toyotas of the faculty to her VW bug. Her parents gave it to her at the end of junior year, right before things went to shit, as a sort of shallow consolation prize for no longer having Beth. It was supposed to represent “the freedom every young woman should have and celebrate at her age,” or some bullshit. The truth was, it was a bribe to accept the sloppiness of the divorce and how her father was dragging her mother through the mud in every arena of their petty, socialite lives. Quinn only took the keys because she didn’t want to have to ask for rides anymore, not from Finn or Puck or her father.

Or Rachel.

The car’s color doesn’t fit her new identity, nor do the happy, round curves of its body. It was clearly purchased for a Cheerios captain—someone she’ll never ever be again. Quinn is sharp edges now, cold metal and deep blacks. Dangerous. Yet here she is, stuck in the cutest car in the lot that’s making a mockery of her twice a day. But it still beats walking.

So, Quinn blasts her Hole album and takes corners way too fast, like she’s stolen it from some unsuspecting young office clerk who accidentally left a window down in the wrong part of town. It’s fun to pretend that’s the origin story. Lord knows she’s trying hard enough to forget her own fucking origin story.

Today the Bimbo-mobile is taking Quinn home as fast as the red lights will allow, each one glowing with the same messages—

_STOP_

_WARNING_

_DANGER_

Sunlight reflects off the fire-engine-red hood, and Quinn squints hard through her circular sunglasses that don’t actually do shit. Maybe the car’s appropriate after all, she thinks. Here comes Quinn Fabray, burnout skank loser lesbian, in her giant red shell so you can see her coming a mile away. An actual ticking time bomb in human form.

Forty minutes later, she fucks herself in the ass on the shower floor until drops of red appear in the water stream trickling past her knees.

_DANGER_

_WARNING_

** _STOP_ **

She doesn’t.


	3. Chapter 3

On Tuesday, Quinn skips Spanish to stakeout the 300 Hall bathroom with Ronnie. After twenty minutes, six girls’ purses are relieved of their cash, mints, and tampons, plus a chocolate protein bar Quinn pocketed for later when Ronnie wasn’t looking. The third victim put up a bit of a fight, so Ronnie took a fistful of blue blouse and shoved her into the nearest stall, forcing the girl onto her knees while Quinn absently stood watch by the sinks. This kind of behavior used to bother her. Swirlies, slushies, vandalism, all of it. It used to frighten her, what she and her new friends were capable of.

That was then.

Besides, as Rachel said, it doesn’t matter what Quinn does anymore.

She hears the girl struggle and protest as Ronnie says, _“Hold still, slut.”_

There’s the familiar flushing sound, then a scream, and the girl bolts out of the stall and runs away, leaving her bag behind under the swinging door. Ronnie’s digging through it hungrily as she rejoins her friend.

“That was fast,” Quinn notes, confused.

Ronnie doesn’t look up. “Yeah, she was easy.” She finds a pack of gum and pulls it out, then pauses for a moment upon realizing the double entendre of her comment. Chuckling to herself, she resumes digging.

Quinn’s brow furrows. “She was _dry_.”

“I just cleared it.” More rummaging. “There was a lot in there. Fuckin’ lazy-ass people can’t kick a handle.”

Quinn hadn’t considered that sometimes the swirlies might not be in an empty bowl. “That was kind of you.”

Ronnie doesn’t think it’s much of a gesture. “Even I wouldn’t do that to someone.”

It seems the Skanks, of all people, have their limits and lines they don’t cross. And if they do, then surely Rachel must as well.

Quinn’s going to find them.

********

_ [I’ll save you a seat next to me down below](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lir8wgsXW8) _

On Wednesday, she watches what’s left of the Glee club singing in the quad, and seeing how pathetic and desperate they are makes her feel much better.

She can do this. She can stay strong.

She doesn’t need them or anyone.

At the end of their tediously long song, Quinn casts what remains of her lit cigarette onto the piano—helpfully doused with lighter fluid by her former squad—and sends it into an instant blaze. It’s the ultimate _fuck you_ message to the club of hope and joy.

They’ll never take her alive.

A safe distance from the rising flames, Rachel’s eyes try to find Quinn’s, heavy with anger and questions. But Quinn just walks on, leaving even more destruction in her wake, hiding behind her stupid sunglasses and a smirk.

_Anything I do, huh?_

********

Thursday morning, she finds a note in her locker.

_Quinn,_

_I’m here for you, as a friend, if you need one, which I think you do. Can we talk? Lunch, maybe? I’ll be in the choir room._

_I meant what I said. I know who you really are, and nothing you can do will make me think any less of you. (But please don’t tell the innocent piano I said that.)_

_-Rachel_

Quinn scowls and crumples the note harshly, stuffing it into her bag and out of sight before slamming her locker closed. She’d managed to scrub last week’s haunting words from her mind, but now Rachel’s voice is back all over again, following her down the hallway. A spirit with unfinished business.

_I know who you really are._

_Nothing will make me think less of you._

_Nothing you can do._

** _Nothing._ **

********

_ [I’ve been fucking around while you’ve been saving the world](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rR5_u07s5k) _

Quinn joins the other Skanks in the girls’ bathroom on the foreign language hall for their regularly scheduled 3rd period extortion ring, promising weak-willed freshmen a swirly if they don’t give up their lunch money. Fortunately, Quinn never has to do the dirty work herself, just stand there looking threatening and hold the cash as the trusted bank, two roles that suit her fine.

She’s always been comfortable wielding power and influence she didn’t necessarily earn. If others willingly bestow it upon her, all the better. And thus far today, her impassive glower has earned her sixteen dollars.

Their fifth mugging is interrupted by Sue, who strolls in requesting a private audience with her defected champion. Quinn pulls out a cigarette, slipping into her sturdiest armor of apathy, and prepares herself for whatever is coming.

For so long, Sue represented the traits Quinn wanted—success, status, power, leadership, independence—the same things Quinn has sworn off in her new Skank identity. The costume is starting to rip in places, starting to itch against her skin when she catches herself having an _emotion_, but Quinn’s fought too hard to build it and tell the world this is who she’s become. She can’t show weakness now. Not to Rachel, not to Sue, not to anyone.

So, before Sue can fire a first round, Quinn brandishes her weapon of truth, effortlessly slinging the words that make her invincible. “You have no power over me anymore because I have nothing left to lose.”

She believes it, and she doesn’t.

Because it’s not Sue who still has power over her, it’s that fucking crumpled note in her backpack. It’s the emotions that hide behind her icy surface—the ones she’s too scared to face and even more afraid to let go of entirely. Feeling _something_, even anger, helps Quinn know she isn’t completely gone. She just doesn’t know how to handle the only things she cares about—Beth, Rachel, her family—all being things she’s lost or things she can’t have. They all have leverage over her, and she has no say in the matter.

Sue pitches her stupid anti-Glee video idea, and Quinn makes her demands, slipping briefly back into her old self, but only because she gets what she wants that way. Quinn agrees to do the film to make Sue go away, or maybe out of boredom. She tells herself it’s not because she wants attention and to be noticed again. No, her days of performing in front of an audience are over. This will prove she has nothing to hide, that there isn’t some shred of sentimentality left in her for Glee club or its shining star.

If Quinn tells herself enough times that she’s outside their grasp, she might start to believe it. If she can read a fucking piece of paper in her locker without…

The bell rings. She’s not going to history today. She can’t handle hearing about dead people’s problems when she’s still battling her own.

Quinn storms out of the bathroom into the hall, heading for the exit at the end. She can make it if she just keeps her head down. She can get out of here. Away from responsibilities and forgiveness and lunch dates and—

Her shoulder collides with something, or someone, hard.

“Whoa!” It’s Puck. “Pretty sure football practice is _after_ school.” He sounds as annoyed as she feels.

They haven’t spoken in weeks, not since she lied to him about her older summer fling, and even that wasn’t face to face. She really doesn’t want to do this now.

“Sorry,” Quinn mutters, avoiding eye contact, and starts to walk around him. The door is maybe fifty feet away. Ten seconds.

“That’s it?” he calls after her. She slows but doesn’t fully stop. “Why is everything with you a hit and run? Literally and…the other one,” he finishes lamely.

Sighing, Quinn turns around. She doesn’t want to think about the fact that Puck probably recognizes the back of her head better than the front now. “Figuratively.” Her eyes narrow to remind him this conversation isn’t actually happening.

“Yeah, well, whatever,” he says, one hand on the door to the boys’ bathroom. “If you don’t want my help, then fine. But I _still_ haven’t talked. About anything.”

By which he means _everything_. The marathons of debaucherous sex, Quinn screaming Rachel’s name as she came, her mysterious online purchase (that, Quinn realized later, was still in his browser history and certainly not a mystery anymore). If she’s now McKinley High’s Big Gay Queen of Anal Sex, her rise to the throne had a witness. And Quinn fucked up—royally, if she’ll allow herself the pun—by giving Puck this much intel on her dark side. This much _power_. The only way to reclaim it was to freeze him out and prove she didn’t need him.

Which, she doesn’t.

Her brain says escape, just run the fuck out of there. Get to the door, get to her car, and floor it. But there’s nowhere new to go; no actual way out of her past. She can drive as long as she wants, as fast as she wants, as far as she wants, but it’s just a racetrack. She’s stuck in this loop.

“Have _you_?” Puck asks. “Talked.” He takes his hand off the wooden door. “To Rachel. She was looking for you.”

“I don’t _want_ to talk. Not to her, _not_ to you, not to anyone.”

She’s so tired and angry, and now Rachel is coming at her from all sides, even through Puck. He was supposed to be a safe zone. Well, relatively speaking. A neutral zone. Nothing she and Puck did in July was _safe._

Quinn lost herself and found herself again there in his bedroom—bent over the bed and on all fours and against the dresser, over and over and over. Because that’s what Rachel didn’t want her to do.

She became unrecognizable to everyone in her life, even herself, and now it seems it’s time to do it again. If all of that still wasn’t enough, she will do more. She has no reason not to.

Quinn Fabray is going missing, and Puck’s going to hide the body.

“Come on,” she gestures, suddenly calm and relaxed, and starts walking. She knows he’ll follow.

“Yeah, one sec. Wait here –_”_

“I’m not waiting,_”_ Quinn calls out without stopping. “_You_ can wait.” She begins silently counting to five but hears his shuffling footsteps after three.

Yeah. She’s still got it. Or _him_, anyway.

As she walks, Quinn hears the faint crunch of the note scraping against a textbook in her bag. She still has that, too. But the words are feeling smaller now.

_Nothing I can do, Rachel?_

_We’ll see about that._


	4. Chapter 4

Quinn passes through the door and circles around the patches of sparse grass to the back of the gym. The rear emergency exit doesn’t latch closed unless you shove all your body weight against it from the outside, which no one ever does, so it functions as a reliable, easy entrance to the school. Figgins supposedly disabled the fire alarm wire after a string of pranks. All Quinn knows is that she needs the door to be open today.

It is.

She turns the metal handle for the first time this school year and enters the narrow back hallway. The doors to the various offices are closed, and the locker rooms should be empty by now, considering it’s barely ten o’clock, second period. She trusts Puck is still following, and the echo of the main door opening and closing behind her confirms it.

The third door on the left, marked _Girls Locker Room_, is weirdly familiar and foreign at the same time, maybe because she was never in here alone.

“Uh,” Puck starts, “This is super cool spank bank material, but I’m not getting thrown off the team for your little field trip. There aren’t even any girls here.” He sounds annoyed.

“Shut up and keep quiet.”

They circle past the empty benches in front of the lockers to the far back corner, where the entrance to the showers is. It’s completely silent; everything is still.

Quinn stops and steadies herself. If she thinks about this too long, she won’t actually go through with it.

She steps through the opening in the painted cement walls onto a sea of white tiles. It angles to the right, forming a path down a hallway with ten individual shower stalls on each side. Concrete dividers, no doors. There’s a stray white towel on a bench outside one of them, probably used and left behind. Quinn sees the cracked tiles on the wall of the fifth shower and remembers when Santana came at it with a softball bat after a particularly nasty break-up in ninth grade.

So many past associations, so many memories.

That was the old Quinn. Cheerio captain, prom royalty.

She who began here, fittingly, will also end here.

Quinn slows as she reaches the last shower on the left. Without ceremony, she removes her Skank-issue bandana and jewelry, placing them carefully on the bench. Then she peels off her T-shirt, causing Puck to look behind them for any approaching authorities. He isn’t complaining, or stopping her. By the time he’s done looking back and forth, Quinn is completely naked and her suit of armor is in a folded heap.

He offers facetiously, “We could just talk.”

Quinn steps onto the cold tiles in her bare feet and finds the wide, brass drain cover in the shower floor. It’s slightly off-center, which always bothered her for some reason. She moves past it and turns, squatting to put one knee down on either side of the drain, so that she’s directly over it. There’s two feet of space between her body and the nearest wall. Her back may be up against it metaphorically, but that’s all Quinn will allow.

Puck hesitates, looking a bit confused. “So, not like last time.” But he’s answering his own question. It’s not her ass that’s made available to him this time—it’s her face.

This _is_ new. And it somehow feels even more vulnerable. For all the sensitive skin and nerve endings she’s stimulated down there over the last two months, all five of her senses are on high alert now. Her ass is far enough away from, well, everything—her breathing, her thinking, her screaming—that Quinn has always been able to disconnect when she needs to. With her pain literally behind her, she could still look forward if she wanted to. Or bury her face in darkness. Whatever brought her the right kind of shame.

This time, Quinn’s shame is going to be very much in her face.

Literally.

A flash of warning signals in her brain, the red siren blaring, begging her to reconsider and go back. It’s not too late, not yet.

_“You’ll still be my friend…”_

_No._

She’s going through with this. She’s crossing this line.

Quinn swallows hard and opens her eyes, staring blankly forward without expression. This is what it’s come to. She accepts her fate.

She’s ready.

Puck, meanwhile, looks like the cat who ate the canary and knows he’s about to get a congratulatory blowjob for his efforts. He swaggers forward and positions himself in front of Quinn with a smug smirk, unzipping and pulling it out, letting the whole kit just hang outside his jeans. It’s beginning to win its battle with gravity.

She can’t look at it. It’s gross and it’s weird, and Quinn can smell him from here, reminding her that hygiene was never high on his list of priorities. Not that she can judge, as of late.

Her lips press tightly together with a grimace. If she closes her eyes, she can almost block out the image of it, inches from her face, maybe even forget it’s there at all.

Almost.

“You’re right,” he says, blissfully closing his eyes in preparation. “This is much better than talk—”

“Shut up,” Quinn snaps, much louder than she means to. The angry words bounce off the tiles and carry down the corridor.

She doesn’t want to use words at all right now. She can’t. She can’t tell him what this is and can’t tell him what this isn’t. Quinn just wants it to _happen_ _already_ so she can get on with hating herself. Her face is tense and gridlocked, and she can only imagine what pain must be on open display right now, written all over her face. 

He’s probably watching her. He’ll want to see what she does.

But _she_ doesn’t. Quinn doesn’t want to see any of this. She’s scared to open her mouth, equally as afraid of what might come out of it as what might be put into it.

Her brow furrows, clenched and braced for the worst. “Just…_go_,” she finally whispers.

There’s a pause followed by a huff, and Puck says, “Wow. _That_’s fucked up,” over the ruffled sound of clothing and zippers. “I was trying to _help_ you.”

She opens her eyes and sees he’s walking away.

_Goddamnit._

“Puck,” she calls out weakly, letting her hands drop to the ground. She tenses her grip in frustration; a fingernail catches on a split in the grout between two tiles. His footsteps stop, but it’s not enough to bring him back. “Wait, that’s not…don’t leave,” she adds. “I just…”

But she can’t finish that sentence, because she’s too embarrassed of the words she needs.

He returns, narrow eyes much more suspicious of her intentions this time. “So, you _do_ want to blow me?”

She exhales, cringing at the crass expression. Her eyes find a missing tile on the side wall and stay there. “No.”

“Then why am I here? You suddenly back into butt stuff again out of nowhere? I know you don’t think I have feelings because I’m such a tough and hot dudebro, but when you just disappeared after we did all that stuff this summer, it hurt. For real.”

_Oh please._

She turns her head away so he won’t see her eyes rolling.

“And then you came back looking like Avril Lavigne’s Nightmare Before Christmas,” he continues, “and nobody knows what the fuck is going on with you because you won’t _talk_ to anyone.”

“_Do you want to help me or not?_” she cries out, no longer caring how loud they are. “Do you?”

Quinn’s losing her grip on both the situation and the floor. Rapidly. She’s sitting naked in public school shower mildew stains, about to cry in front of a _boy_, and this isn’t how this was supposed to go. It was supposed to be over by now, for better or worse. If this isn’t even the bad part yet, Quinn doesn’t know if she’ll be able to take it.

She finds his eyes, seeking an answer. But she knows that look. He wore it the day after Beth was taken away.

He pities her.

_Goddamnit._

“Of course I do,” he says impatiently. “But this is…”—he motions to her, on the ground—“…I don’t even know. It’s weird. So. I’m gonna go drain the snake, and you’re gonna put all your clothes back on, and I’ll meet you outside.”

He thinks he’s giving _her _orders now.

Quinn clenches both fists and tries to hold on as everything slips away from her. The concrete walls are closing in. Her body is shaking for six different reasons, and all of them are wrong.

“_Wait,_” she snarls, as if her voice is the only weapon she has left to fire. Her head feels heavy with her body leaning forward like this. It’s the words she won’t speak that are adding the weight, sitting dangerously in her mouth, caught behind her gritted teeth.

If she releases them, she can never take them back.

This happened before—that first time during the Transformers movie. She couldn’t ask, and he didn’t know, and the cowardice almost swallowed her whole. Quinn doesn’t understand why this has to be so fucking hard.

But he wants to leave. It’s all over his face. And if Quinn doesn’t do this now, she won’t be able to bring herself back here again.

Worst of all, Rachel will have been right. The real Rachel, the one who thinks Quinn’s redeemable and still wants to be good.

** _There’s nothing you can do to make me think less of you._ **

Quinn has five seconds. His bladder probably does as well.

“Do that…” she finally breathes out, “drain it…_on me_.”

With those four small words, Quinn Fabray fully submits to her self-destruction. She can’t look at him, but she doesn’t have to.

“For real?” he asks, then pauses. “That’s…kinda fucked up.” Puck’s already passed this judgment here, though this time he’s not angry. Concerned, perhaps. And more than a little sad for her.

It’s the last thing she needs right now.

Quinn’s on her feet before the first tear hits her cheek. _“I fucking told you what I needed.”_

She’s trying to storm off, but Puck’s holding her back—_holding_ her. She curses and pushes hard against his chest, but he doesn’t let go.

“Okay,” he says, “okay, I’m sorry.”

The tears flow from her easily now, and she collapses her forehead against Puck’s shoulder as he wraps his arms around her and says soft, calming words into her ear.

But he’s wrong; nothing about this is going to be alright.

Puck presses a hand into the soft skin of her upper back hand as their torsos swivel gently in the hug. She’s still naked, and it’s weird.

“I’ve got you,” he says. “It’s okay.”

It’s not.

Then suddenly, behind her closed eyes, Rachel is there, standing in the aisle, watching. Her face is expressionless, like she’s simply waiting, though Quinn doesn’t know what for. 

_“See?”_ Rachel finally says. _“The Quinn I know is strong_—_probably the strongest girl I know. And she knows that, sometimes, strength means asking others for help.”_

The hairs on the back of Quinn’s neck stand up at the sound of Rachel’s voice. Her skin comes alive with a wave of stinging cold in the open air, and Quinn draws strength from the discomfort. Puck’s stopped talking, but he’s still embracing her, if a bit more relaxed and comfortably.

It’s not lost on Quinn that he probably just doesn’t want to be released from her tits.

“Don’t ask me what this is,” she says carefully into his shoulder. At the sound of words, he angles his head slightly. “I can’t...I don’t need you to understand it.”

It keeps her from having to confess, I_ don’t understand it._

Puck sighs into her neck and asks one more time, “You’re _sure_? You want me to…pee. Like, on you.”

But Quinn has no more energy for conversation. This whole fucking week has been exhausting in the worst way. Instead, she pulls free from Puck’s arms and lowers herself back to the ground, one knee at a time, until her ass is resting on her heels and her face is back level with his fly. She looks up to meet his eyes for a moment, silently consenting, and then drops her head back down.

A pink and blonde wall shields her view from what’s coming, from the impending unknown. With a shaky, deep breath, Quinn closes her eyes, presses her lips tight, and waits. She hears the faint zipping sound and braces for whatever is about to happen.

Which, apparently, is nothing.

After a very long sixty seconds, she’s feeling stupid. The clandestine danger of the situation is rapidly melting away, shining a light on the cold and naked girl sitting under a boy with his limp dick out for no reason. It’s sobering, and Quinn needs to stay as removed from this reality as possible.

She dares to open her mouth long enough to say, “_Puck_.”

“I’m trying!” he whispers angrily. “I’ve never done this before! It’s weird.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that,” she snaps back, fixated on his ugly, overpriced shoes. His cowardice is making her braver, but that’s not how she wants to feel right now. She’s here like this for only one reason—

_“He’s right,”_ Rachel says. _“People don’t do this, Quinn. _You_ don’t do this. Please just get up while there’s still time.”_

Raising her head slightly as if to look right where Rachel could be standing—just behind Puck, to the left—Quinn envisions the big, brown eyes brimming with sadness and pity as they see what’s become of her.

Rachel, with outstretched hands, trying to make her understand. Pleading with Quinn to get off the filthy ground and make a different choice. Begging Quinn not to let Puck desecrate her body again. To be better than this.

Quietly, Rachel begins to cry.

From her spread position, Quinn feels the distinct arrival of wetness between her legs.

It’s working.

“Okay,” Puck says through his intense focus, “almost got it.”

Rachel’s stepping forward now to the edge of the shower, being careful not to cross the threshold.

_“After everything we’ve been through together, how hard I watched you fight to come back from losing Beth and your breakup with Finn, getting back on the Cheerios and working through your parents’ divorce…I can’t believe you’re throwing it all away, for _this_. I can’t believe_ Quinn Fabray _is choosing to become something so disgusting and repulsive. The Quinn I know and love would _never_ do this.”_

This is the rejection she needed under the goddamn bleachers. Quinn, becoming the antithesis of all the expectations put upon her, and Rachel, powerless to stop it.

A sharp jolt of electricity makes Quinn’s clit twitch ever so slightly. She moves her right hand further up her thigh and rests it there. She doesn’t want to touch herself in front of Puck, but she will if she has to.

Idle hands, and all.

“I’m gonna do it,” Puck says, strained, his eyes clenched tightly shut.

“_I can’t watch this,”_ Rachel says, looking away with her hand over her mouth, then back again. Her lips are trembling.

The tears are flowing; Quinn can feel them running down between her legs.

“_Quinn, _please_ don’t make me watch this. You’re breaking my heart—You know that, right? You have to know that I can’t love someone who hates themselves this much. I can’t take it, I just can’t.”_ Rachel pauses and paces a bit, clearly distraught, then stops and glares at her through blurry eyes. “_Tell me to walk away. Tell me to hate you, Quinn. I need to hear you say it if you want me to believe it. Tell me to leave you here in this pathetic, disgusting hole you crawled into and never look ba—”_

“_Do it!”_ Quinn shouts, realizing too late that she’s said it out loud. Her jaw tightens instinctively as she flinches at her weakness and stupidity. Once again, her open wounds are on display for Puck to see. If he knew just how desperately Quinn clings to this fantasy, she could never face him again.

Fortunately, Puck assumes she was talking to _him_, and a few seconds later, he groans in discomfort as his muscles finally unclench and allow for release. Quinn relinquishes her view of Rachel—stunned, quiet and still—and looks at the floor, head tilted down to protect her face from what’s coming.

It starts as a few drops in her hair, like rain. Quinn notices the light impact, though she doesn’t really feel anything happening yet. But then the actual stream begins, and her entire body tenses.

She’s really doing this.

_“Oh my god,”_ Rachel gasps, utterly distressed as she turns away and buries her face in her hands.

It’s surprisingly warm, comfortably trickling down her neck and back, traversing through all the little hairs still standing at attention. Quinn lets out a small gasp of her own, which instills confidence in her provider.

Puck begins to move his hand a bit, aiming to cover her hair more evenly, it would appear, and Quinn now sees sporadic yellow drops run down her bangs and hit the drain. She starts to make a game of it, seeing if she can shift her head just so that they fall directly into the oval brass holes without touching the sides.

When an errant drop collides with her eyelashes, Quinn closes her eyes suddenly, hoping it’ll go away on its own, but it doesn’t. She carefully raises her arm to thumb it away, holding the rest of her body very still.

She’s not in control here.

The flow is coming steadily now, most of it running off behind her ears after contact. Quinn can feel that the whole top of her head is wet. With the increased volume, however, has also come the smell. It’s strong and sour and exactly what she knew it was but wanted to forget. The disassociation between this sexual act of submission and the commonplace lavatory task begins to break down. The next inhale transports her to a gas station bathroom, to the New York City subway track at midnight, to the back alleys of downtown that never get cleaned. It’s rapidly undoing any positive sensation she’s experiencing.

_“You smell like a homeless person,”_ Rachel says through her grimace, eyes red and swollen from crying. She sniffles once and instantly recoils as she takes in more of the foul odor. “_This is…disgusting!”_ she argues. _“You don’t even like this!”_

As if that was ever the point.

Quinn takes slow and shallow breaths to fight back. If she can control her senses, focus only on the feeling of warm, wet strokes dancing against her skin, she can lose herself in that place. She can live there for a while yet. Quinn steels herself and makes sure she keeps her words inside this time.

_I do like it, Rachel._

_I like it because _you don’t.

Rachel’s face drops. There’s nothing she can say to that. “_Fine. You win.”_ It’s a surrender. And with a last, sad glance at Quinn, the vision of Rachel walks out of sight and doesn’t return.

_I won._

The pressure on her scalp and shoulders recedes until it’s gone, and Quinn watches as gravity pushes the final drops off her very damaged split ends. It seems safe to use a hand to brush aside her bangs so her face stays mostly dry. She’ll be washing it off in just a moment.

“You okay?” Puck asks.

Quinn wishes he would have the courtesy to put his dick away before engaging her in conversation.

“Fine,” she replies without looking up. It seems he’s waiting for something. “Thanks.” It’s intended toward the experience, not the small talk. It’s also the weirdest appreciation Quinn’s ever offered. But, good friend that Puck is, he did what she wanted and kept his questions to himself.

Apparently this is what friendship means to her now.

Quinn can only imagine what he must think of her. She hyper-focuses on a few yellow drops resting on the drain cover, evidence that the events actually took place, that she is in fact wide awake.

_I really did just ask someone to p—_

The sound of Puck’s zipper pulls Quinn back to reality. She pushes up onto her feet, relieving one sore knee at a time, until she’s standing upright.

Puck looks so much smaller at eye level.

Her toes ache and crack as she stretches them back into their resting position, and Quinn can feel the lines of indentation on the balls of her feet from the tile pattern. Hidden from sight, a small tear in tender skin from six nights ago still hurts when she moves at a certain angle. And now the shower stall is full with the smell that’s lazily making its way down her back and arms and hair.

Every part of Quinn’s body is marked by something. By someone.

She reaches for the hot water knob and gives it a full turn, then the cold one, just a quarter turn. She still remembers.

Puck manages to step back just in time to avoid a violent spray as it kicks on. He’s taking the hint to leave, thank god, and simply says he’ll ‘catch her later’ before slinking off to elsewhere. His voice sounds confused, like for all his game and swagger he isn’t sure what line you offer a girl after peeing all over her head.

It’s a small mercy.

Or, maybe he just didn’t know what to say because he doesn’t recognize her anymore. The Quinn he knew has been replaced by whatever this is. Like she just received the most fucked up baptism of all time.

And liked it.

Quinn extends her arms forward and rests her palms flat against the wall, letting the high pressure wash away the layer of disdain coating her body. The jets pound against her face, enough to sting a bit—almost like the tattoo needle had felt against her back. Piercing her skin again and again and again, damaging her permanently. Trapping something foreign inside her even after the wounds healed over.

At least it was damage she could see. So little usually is.

She moves her head slowly left and right, forward and back, angling and tilting. It’s impossible to see what Puck left behind against the beige shower floor, unlike the black wisps of eyeliner swirling by her foot. Had this been a planned excursion, she would’ve had the forethought to bring soap and shampoo, even that godawful apple shit sitting untouched at home.

The one for damaged hair on damaged people.

With each passing minute Quinn’s trying to block out the mental images of what transpired here, but her brain keeps replaying the reel as it processes and fights to accept the experience, to chisel it into her history. It doesn’t help that the hot shower is more or less simulating the event but with twenty times the volume and intensity. Like the whole goddamn football team raining down on her at once.

Forcefully. Violently. Drowning her. With such a quantity that if she cried, no one would see her tears.

_No_.

Quinn opens her eyes to recenter herself, rejecting the horrific image as she takes a deep breath.

Nothing is happening. She’s the only one here. Shower time is _her_ time. No one is going to take that from her.

She sets to the task of washing as best she can, bumping up the heat just slightly to maximize chemical breakdown. She can’t risk the distinctive odor setting in too deeply. So, she teases fingers through her hair slowly, thoroughly, like she’s rinsing the paint out of her best brush. It’s tedious and deliberate (and wasting water, not that she cares), but if she misses any—if the brush dries unclean—she’ll harden. Ruined.

Garbage.

Maybe she shouldn’t even bother. Right now she feels the furthest fucking thing from an instrument of art. More like the canvas, freshly painted on.

Quinn’s mind flashes back to Monday—fucking _Monday_ when Rachel cornered her under the bleachers and filled her head with _things_—the day she saw that guy relieving himself on the gym wall.

And now, reliving that moment, Quinn sees the boy from the opposite angle, sensing him close to her face. She can feel the hot stream against her skin.

Like she _is_ a wall.

It’s no stretch of Quinn’s imagination; she may as well have invented the concept. Steel-reinforced concrete borders around her heart, ten stories high with a goddamn moat of piranhas. Rachel can launch her cannonballs of forgiveness and promise, but Quinn’s not backing down from this war. She may be cracked, she may be crumbling, she may be nothing anymore but an empty, piss-covered fortress of solitude. But if so, it’s because that’s the way she wants it. And every sturdy castle can stand a bit of rain.

On the bright side, the smell seems to be gone.

With her hair sufficiently rinsed, Quinn uses her hands to scrub the layer of filth off the rest of her body. Then, leaning back, she finds the best angle to get a jet of water directly between her legs to wash away what’s collected there.

It’s more than she thought.

The last of it slips down the drain with the rest in a swirl, and the final damning evidence—every trace of their respective DNA—is gone. There’s nothing left to do but abandon the scene of this crime. She’s committed so many lately with Mack, Ronnie, and Sheila—mostly petty theft, vandalism, and trespassing. Some were victimless acts, some not.

There’s a victim here, too; with an abomination like this, there has to be. Quinn knows this was a violation of something, of some_one_. It bothers her that she doesn’t know who.

Nature, maybe. Or Rachel.

Or herself.

All three.

Right now, she’s too numb to care.

Quinn turns off the water and hears the echoing slurp of the pipe below her feet as the rest of the room falls sharply silent. The abandoned towel three stalls down doesn’t smell freshly washed, but at least it’s dry. The old Quinn would’ve scoffed at the idea of even touching a stranger’s dirty castoff. Being a Skank, however, means dealing with stolen and/or second-hand things all the time. Used things. Clothing, music, cars.

Bodies.

Second-hand, used.

Damaged_._

She leaves the wet towel on the ground, then gets dressed and ties her boots and puts her jewelry back on, all things she knows exactly how to do. What comes after that, Quinn has no fucking clue, but it starts with getting the hell out of this locker room to neutral ground.

She manages to escape the space unscathed, relatively speaking, and reaches the door to the outside just as a PE class of loud juniors files into the hallway from the other direction, heading right toward her. Quinn’s in plain sight, close enough to hear snippets of their superficial conversations as she pushes the door open, but no one says anything. No one asks why she’s going out the fire door alone at 10:45 in the morning.

But Quinn’s not surprised. Nobody notices her anymore.

She heads left and follows the perimeter toward the east lot. There’s still an outline of the urine stain on the wall, but only because it hasn’t rained yet.

Her car is uncomfortably warm inside, having faced the morning sun for the last three hours. In July, the first time she left Puck’s after her awakening (as she calls it), Quinn sat tenderly in this very seat feeling confident and deliciously naughty. She felt _alive_. That sensation is miles from where she is now—dazed, numb, lost.

Filthy.

No amount of driving will change that, but she starts the ignition anyway.

********

Her mother isn’t home this early in the day, thankfully, so Quinn’s on her own. She makes a PB&J even though she’s not hungry. It gives her hands and mind something to do—a brief reprieve to delay whatever happens next.

She can’t fix her life, but she can fix a fucking sandwich.

The stairs in the foyer creak in judgment under Quinn’s feet as she slowly ascends. She takes a second shower—in cold water this time—and uses the ridiculous, condescending shampoo, if only to appease it.

What’s one more submission at this point?

When she crawls into bed, Quinn can smell her hair against the pillow. It’s aggressively fragrant. But buried under the cheery layer of artificial fruit is the faint but persistent truth, like yellow paint peeking through a coat of white primer.

It seems the promised damage control is just a cover-up. There is no healing to be had here. There is no erasing what has been done.

Someone urinated on her today.

Because she _told _them to_._

It still doesn’t seem possible. A gross teenage boy took out his dick and _peed_ _on her head_. Whether he thought of it as a sexual act, she doesn’t want to know. Whether she received it as one is…equally messy.

Quinn only undressed to protect her clothing. She never even touched him—or herself. Nobody would’ve called it ‘sex.’

Yes, it aroused her, but only because Rachel was there, begging, like she used to be. Quinn’s body complied, preparing for imminent entry, desperately flooding the gates to let Rachel in as the rest of Quinn worked ever so hard to push her away.

It’s these goddamn contradictions that are tearing her apart inside.

She likes being one of the Skanks, yet she hates it.

She enjoyed what Puck did to her, and it disgusted her.

She doesn’t know why she did it, and she knows exactly why she did it.

She’s in love with Rachel Berry.

She fucking _hates_ Rachel Berry.

Only, she doesn’t.

If Quinn hates anyone, it’s herself. She hates how much power she gives away, placing weight on others’ opinions of her. Becoming a Skank was supposed to eradicate that, removing self-image from the equation entirely. Washing all her cares away in a sea of apathy until she’s eventually forgotten.

Invisible.

But they’re still looking at her. They’re always looking. And she hates that deep down she wants them to. Her days are filled with choice after choice after choice, no longer based on what she wants for herself, but on what she thinks will make others react. What they will reject.

Pink is not a subtle color. Neither is yellow. The color of sunshine, but also the color of human waste.

And maybe that’s all Quinn is anymore—a waste of a human.

She pulls the covers over her head as she turns on her side and lets herself cry, here in the safety of her dark cave. The air gradually grows warm and stale and suffocating, which only intensifies the sour stench still on her pillow. It all becomes unbearable, and Quinn releases her face to the fresh air of her room with a deep inhale. Her eyes fall on the bedside clock.

11:52.

Rachel—the _real_ Rachel—is probably sitting alone in the choir room right now with a small Tupperware of salad, waiting for her. Planning out her bits of advice but ready to listen first. Quinn wonders, how long will she sit there? How many minutes? How many lunches?

_How long will she wait for me?_

But it doesn’t matter, because Quinn will never come.


	5. Chapter 5

The distant rumble of the garage door gently tugs Quinn back from wherever she managed to escape to. The dim, midday sun peeks through her curtains, playfully teasing a promise of more as her closed eyes begin to adjust to the light. It was sound sleep, though Quinn doesn’t know how much, and it’s too late to escape back in it now. All the images from the morning are pouring back in, a tidal wave of regret and humiliation and…yeah.

She opens her eyes, if only to see something safe.

2:18.

Her phone on the nightstand emits a small green light in the corner, faint and dimming, but it’s every bit a spotlight beacon. Someone is looking for her.

Or not. It’s just a notification for a news headline about something happening in France, and Quinn couldn’t care less. She retreats back into the cave of covers, leaving herself an airway this time, and swims a few laps in the sea of her thoughts. Sleeping in her own bed seems to have stabilized her a bit, granting her more clarity to continue processing this mess she’s gotten herself into.

Even with her mother out, Quinn’s not feeling bold enough to smoke inside the house (or motivated enough to leave the bed, frankly), so she slips back into her previous coping mechanism: reading.

Grabbing her phone, she starts by checking her email (nothing) and texts (nothing), and then lands on a blank Google screen in bold colors. She isn’t sure what to type that won’t send her somewhere terrifying, but Wikipedia seems like a relatively safe place to start.

Twenty minutes later, she has link-hopped enough to create a mental and vocabularic framework of the day’s event, learning more than she ever wanted to know about bodily functions. But approaching this academically _is_ helping. Normalizing it, however much that’s possible. Her pulse evens out as she reads _non-toxic_ and _95% water_. Apparently, people have done way worse things than she did today for hundreds of years and lived to talk about it. The whole situation is still distasteful, but it’s not going to kill her. At least, not physically.

Maybe that remaining five percent content is shame.

When the articles begin telling her the same things over and over, Quinn turns off the screen and sets the phone down with a soft _plop_ on the bed. Her hands find her eyes and rub them hard, blocking out the rest of the light until pink and green circles appear behind her eyelids. Truth be told, she feels every bit as confused as before.

_It’s okay if you liked it_.

The voice in her head is her own at first, but then it’s _her_ voice.

_It’s okay, Quinn. We all like different things. You’re not hurting anyone, not even yourself. You saw the article; it’s not going to cause any harm, especially not just on your head. It’s just water._

Rachel chuckles softly at Quinn’s ridiculousness.

_Did you really think I was going to stop being your friend for this? It was one time. You were curious about something, and you tried it. That’s what people _do_. There’s no shame in that. And actually, I’m kind of proud of you. I know that might seem strange, but it’s true._

No. This isn’t helping.

Quinn doesn’t _want_ her acceptance. She doesn’t want Rachel’s forgiveness, and she sure as hell doesn’t want her _pride_. She doesn’t want absolution. Not for this, not for what she’s become. Not for everything she’s lost and everything she’s thrown away. If she stops fighting, it will all have been for nothing.

_Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you._

Rubbing harder against her eyes, Quinn retreats deep into the darkness where Rachel’s kindness can’t reach her. Quinn puts herself back on that cold, locker room floor, back on her knees in front of a nameless boy, naked and ready to be desecrated. And Rachel watches, suddenly silenced, her quivering lips shining with tears as she shakes her head. She truly looks like her heart can’t survive this again.

_Good_.

_Take it, Rachel._

Those three words send a rush through her, and Quinn trails her right hand down to find the source. Burying herself deeper under the covers for shelter, Quinn’s fingers reach their destination under the blue waistband. She closes her eyes tighter and focuses on that glorious image of Rachel in despair on her account. It’s beautiful and cruel and intoxicating.

Quinn hates herself a little for liking it so much.

She envisions a familiar series of events that evoke a reaction from Rachel—the sound of the boy’s fly unzipping, Quinn readying her position underneath, asking him loudly and confidently for even more this time.

Her eyes lock on Rachel. _“Because I like it.”_

But the biggest reaction isn’t from Rachel, it’s from Quinn’s own body, there buried under the baby blue bedspread. And in that moment, she knows her statement is true.

Sliding her underwear to her ankles, Quinn presses two fingers against her clit. Her back lifts slightly in response as she draws the first circle. She starts slow, building a rhythm as her body temperature and pulse catch up. It’s been a long time since she did this clothed and dry, or without anything in her ass, for that matter. But this new fantasy is quickly proving just as effective.

_“Are you watching, Rachel?”_

And then, on Quinn’s command, the memory is washing over her. Trickling through her hair, running past her ears, making warm trails down her skin. She looks through the falling stream to see Rachel on the other side, watching and frowning and crying, unable to do anything to stop her.

As the architect of the experience, Quinn can easily manipulate the elements of the situation to her liking. There’s no scraping tile against her knees, no repulsive smell blurring the lines of her enjoyment—only bodies and heat and wetness, heightened by the chemicals building in her brain.

Quinn’s arm works tirelessly as she bites her lip and fights to lose herself in this new mode of self-loathing. The more she thinks about how wrong it is, the more acutely she can feel the imaginary flow. It’s clear and steady and unending, pouring over her at a perfect temperature.

She fights to focus on the feeling of it against her hair, remembering the sensation from earlier and amplifying it optimally. Here, there are no limitations of reality, no limitations of stupid boys and their stupid bodies, and she can make it be whatever she wants. She can exist in this submission until either her mind breaks or her body gives way.

And here in her mind, Quinn can look up safely as she receives her punishment. All she sees—all that matters—is the look on Rachel’s face.

They can’t take their eyes off each other.

The harder Rachel begs her to stop, the faster Quinn moves.

Minute after minute, the scene replays endlessly as the tension in her body rises. Quinn envisions Rachel next to her in the storm, forehead leaning against her temple, hands squeezing her arm and thigh, softly pleading into her ear.

_“I’ll do anything you want, Quinn…anything…please, Quinn…please…”_

Quinn’s ass clenches instinctively, squeezing hard to hold what’s usually there when she hears these words. Adding that memory to the mix, Quinn’s now being violated from both ends of her body at once, feeling the pressure pounding into her over and over, forcing her to take it like the dirty, damaged girl that she is.

And then, her mental house of cards comes tumbling down.

Quinn’s toes flex as the incoming rush floods through her, lifting her to the top of the wave before crashing down. Her knees bend as her body curls inward, reacting to the intensity, and she holds still in that position for a few moments to ride out the high. A long twenty seconds later, the sensation gradually recedes, leaving sweat all over her tingling, tired body. Quinn’s eyes readjust to the room as the real world floods back in.

She pulls a Kleenex out of the light green box next to the clock and cleans up, only to discover that the job is so extensive, it requires a second tissue.

That’s new.

But, whatever. She has just enough comedown buzz left to drift back into sleep. When she wakes, she’ll be forced to leave this bed and pretend her life isn’t uncontrollably spiraling down a drain. But for now, she can still see the image of Rachel walking away, and Quinn watches the figure become distant and blurred, until it fades into black.

********

It’s 3:54, and she has to pee.

Quinn reluctantly throws the covers off with a groan and walks into the bathroom, blinking against the bright, artificial light. She completes the task routinely and doesn’t feel odd about it. It doesn’t seem like her associations have changed, because they _haven’t_. She’s going to the bathroom; that’s what people do. It isn’t sexual, it isn’t dirty. What she fantasized about is different from what she flushed away, because it just…is.

And in a way, after reading all those online articles, what Puck did to her feels weirdly clinical and academic now. It seemed like an original idea at the time, a reaction to the circumstances of her terrible life. But now, seeing she’s hardly the first person to do this to herself, it takes a lot of the edge out of it. Apparently many people like…being on the receiving end of that.

It makes her feel better, and it doesn’t.

Quinn needs a way to think about what happened that doesn’t cross the boundaries into her own life. Not just to rationalize the past, but to allow for the possibility of it recurring in the future. Ironically, it’s both the safest and most fucked up means she has right now of self-harm, and she needs a way to ask for it when the mood strikes. Communication has never been her strong suit.

The phone buzzes beside her, and Quinn jumps, startled. It’s a text.

**U ok?**

She sighs. It’s Puck. Of course.

**Yeah**, she replies.

She sets the phone back down and returns to her train of thought, but apparently he’s not done.

**U skipped english**

She doesn’t owe him an explanation. Since when does he care about school?

**I though that was ur fave**, he presses.

He’s not wrong. Much to the Skanks’ protest, it’s the one hour of the day Quinn makes a point of attending. Being in a few AP classes keeps her parents off her back. Maybe if Puck spent more time in _his _remedial English class, she thinks to herself, he could learn how to spell.

Quinn stares at the small, dark screen and takes a moment to consider her options—each one a variation of typing something, deleting it, and not replying at all.

When the small device buzzes in her hand a fourth time, she groans angrily. “_What_?”

**Hey sorry about what I said, ur not fucked up **

_Well, thanks so very fucking much for that._ Quinn has never needed Puck’s approval, and that didn’t change today.

**Its called a golden shower**

_Please stop talking._

**Or water sports**

_UGGGGHHHHHHH._

**I just went on porn hub and its actually pretty hot now that im keeping my eyes open lol**

_Great. Congratulations. Now _leave me alone_._

**There was this girl who kinda looks like u used to and he fucked her ass and jizzed on it then peed on it. Could relly be u if u want**

She throws the phone to the end of the bed and pulls her knees up to hide her face, screaming in frustration.

From downstairs, she can hear her mother rummaging around in the kitchen, and Quinn rises to pull on a neutral outfit and join her. Literally any conversation she can imagine with her mother is preferable to this one.

Quinn turns her phone off and leaves it face down on the bed for good measure. She’s walked away from Puck many times before; it doesn’t bother her at all to do it now.

********

After an awkward but uneventful dinner of leftover pork tenderloin with mustard sauce, Quinn watches TV in the living room with her mother as she does every Thursday. It’s safe and mindless and keeps her out of trouble one night a week. Tonight, she needs that sanctuary for new reasons, and it’s doubtful she’ll find any ‘golden showers’ in Shondaland.

Surely God wouldn’t be that cruel today.

Three hours later, she makes it to 11pm unscathed. The commercial breaks, however, gave Quinn too much time to think about trying _not_ to think about it. Her guilty conscience began seeing indications that the people in the ads _know_. She didn’t remember there ever being this many shampoo commercials. Every time a woman in a shower appeared, Quinn shifted uncomfortably and avoided her mother’s eyes. Then the stupid yogurt commercial with Jamie Lee Curtis and a big vat of honey pouring over the vanilla yogurt—that one showed up three times. Even the kids running through the sprinkler for homeowner’s insurance set her on edge.

And maybe that’s why, at 11:08, she’s back upstairs with her phone in her hand.

Thankfully, Puck never sent anything else after that last (godawful) text message. Quinn wishes she could start a new thread, like in email, but she doesn’t want to risk having what she’s about to say anywhere near a computer.

She enters her unlock code and stares at the blinking cursor, then puts her thumbs in motion.

**No, I have my own idea. I’ll text you later. I need time.**

She sends it, then adds, **Don’t call it…those things you said.**

With a deep breath to calm her shaking hands, Quinn commits new letters to the screen one at a time. Retaking control, reclaiming the situation on her terms.

**You took a piss. That’s all.**

She found her word. It’s vulgar, and she isn’t used to saying it in this context, but it’s better than the alternatives. Typing it sends a small jolt through her body. It makes her feel dangerous.

This word is hers now.

She rereads her text four times before clicking the blue button. The rush of power quickly morphs into fear as soon as the words are released from her hands.

Three very long minutes later, Puck responds—**ok**

And that’s that. She bought herself some time, but it’s back in motion. Hopefully now she can start to figure out what the hell it means and what she’s going to do about it. The last time she went on a journey of self-discovery, it became fucking herself in the ass with a dildo three nights a week. Self-punishment she could relish and celebrate.

But if this is something she wants to make a regular part of her routine, she doesn’t see how to take Puck—or any partner, really—out of the equation. Even if she could, this isn’t just about piss and never was. She might not know _what_ the fuck it’s actually about anymore, but she knows that much.

The rest can wait until tomorrow.

*******

In an effort to return from the alternate universe that was her Thursday, Quinn attempts to have as normal a Friday as possible: black coffee, smoking with the Skanks during second period, drawing in her notebook during Spanish, and avoiding the choir room at all costs at lunch.

She even goes to AP English, but only because they’re studying _The Jabberwocky_. Quinn arrives late to ensure Rachel doesn’t have the chance to pick a seat near her. It’s childish, but it works, and Quinn slinks quietly to an open spot in the very back, two rows over.

Rachel does offer her a small wave and hushed “_Hi”_ as she passes, but Quinn doesn’t return either one.

She wants to see Rachel, and she doesn’t.

She wants Rachel right beside her, and she doesn’t.

She wants Rachel’s voice in her ear, and she doesn’t.

She wants to make Rachel cry, and she doesn’t.

If Lewis Carroll can write an entire poem in nonsense and convey the meaning clearly, why can’t Quinn can’t make sense of her own thoughts in plain English? She needs something simple. Something to distract her from the complicated things pulling at her mind. Some kind of escape.

Ten minutes before the end of class, Quinn takes out her phone.

Without overthinking it, she types, **I’m coming over at 9. You have from the end of practice until then to drink two liters of water and hold it.**

**Don’t screw up.**

She doesn’t wait for a response before putting her phone away. Puck’s not going to say no.


	6. Chapter 6

The six hours after school pass more slowly than Quinn expects. She plays it cool and drinks three-dollar vodka with the Skanks on the roof until 5, then they migrate to the park when the building closes. She excuses herself at 7, barely buzzed enough anymore to notice, and the long walk back to her car helps with the rest. She makes it home, safe and sober, just in time to have Chinese takeout with her mother.

Judy always asks for extra fortune cookies, which Quinn finds a bit juvenile. They usually go uneaten; her mother just likes the messages. Only a simple-minded woman like her would put so much stock in external validation from a randomly drawn cliché. Whatever gets her through the day.

Tonight, Judy carves out three from the pile and pushes them over toward Quinn, saying, “Here, honey. I hope they’re good.”

Quinn begrudgingly cracks the shell of the first one and pulls out the thin, white slip of paper.

_** People are naturally attracted to you. **_

She crumples that one quickly without sharing it aloud.

Next.

_** You will become better acquainted with a coworker. **_

Stupid. And she doesn’t even _have_ a job. She reads this one to her mother if only as a testimony to its baselessness.

The third one seems harmless, but as Quinn rereads it, the words are getting under her skin.

_** Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds. **_

“I like that one,” Judy says, reaching over to examine it herself. Quinn drops it on the table before she can, though, and walks off without pushing in her chair. She doesn’t have time for this crap.

It’s 8:24, and she’s got somewhere to be.

********

8:53.

The red bug is parked in Puck’s driveway, silent and still. Quinn’s watching the clock and going over her mental plan for what’s about to happen. If she’s being honest with herself, she isn’t scared of the Puck part of it at all—she’s faced much scarier things.

Labor pains. Homelessness. Sue Sylvester.

Tonight, Quinn’s afraid of herself. She’s afraid of not knowing where her boundaries are. She doesn’t know what she’ll want to actually do in there. She doesn’t know what she’ll say ‘no’ to.

Quinn’s not said ‘no’ to Puck before.

She wonders how big Beth is now. What her face looks like. What noises she makes. If she’s learned how—

A loud banging on the car window scares the absolute shit out of her, and Quinn jumps, screaming, “_What the hell?!”_

Puck jumps back, too, and looks more annoyed than anything. “You coming?” he asks, muffled through the safety glass. “I’m dying, here.”

She puts the keys in her bag and hits the lock, stepping out into the cool September evening to follow him inside. It feels strange, him escorting her in, like she hasn’t been here a hundred times before. Like she hadn’t let herself inside for round after round of dirty, animalistic, on-all-fours sex this summer.

This time feels different. She made an _appointment_.

To get peed on.

No—_pissed_ _on_, she reminds herself, _and that’s not the same_. She’s curating a situation, much like she did before. Losing herself in an activity so outside the realm of what Quinn Fabray is supposed to do that she surely can’t _be_ Quinn Fabray anymore if she does it.

_Right?_

Puck reaches the screen door and holds it for her. “I didn’t have a two-liter, but I know it’s a lot, so I just filled up this empty beer can with water, like, twenty times.”

Quinn’s actually impressed he went to all that trouble. No wonder he seems impatient. But mostly, she’s struck by the fact that he did what she told him to. The rush of the power trip is undeniable, and Quinn isn’t about to let the reins slip out of her hands now.

When Puck steps into the hallway and pauses, Quinn doesn’t slow down. She’s no follower. She’ll take it from here.

Her momentum carries her straight ahead into the bathroom, which is always worse than she remembers. Quinn’s only used it a few times before when absolutely necessary. He doesn’t even put the toilet seat up. Cringing, she realizes that varnished wood is probably hiding all kinds of stains she’s sat on.

But then, that ship has very much sailed now.

She pushes aside the nondescript beige shower curtain with one sweeping motion and surveys the landscape. Not too much mildew around the basin. Basic amenities for when she needs to rinse off afterward. A plastic non-slip mat on the bottom that looks scratchy. (Quinn got rid of hers weeks ago when her knees rubbed raw with friction burns.)

“I need a clean towel,” she tells him. “And a washcloth.”

“Yeah, hang on,” he says and runs quickly out to the main part of the house. He comes back with freshly folded linens swiped from his mother’s closet.

They’re yellow.

Puck sets them on the counter and starts taking off his shoes and shirt in a hurry. Quinn doesn’t want to lose her sense of directing this encounter and mirrors his actions, if not his pace. She’s chosen a very simple outfit for this occasion—jeans and a black T-shirt, now on the floor with the Chucks that don’t require socks. No bra or panties, no jewelry or makeup. She’s not here to look good; she’s been putting way much more thought into what she’s about to be wearing. Whether or not it’ll fit. Whether or not it’ll feel like _her_.

Either way, like with any interaction with a teen male’s dick, it should be over and done in two minutes.

“Ready?” Puck asks her with a sense of urgency.

Quinn doesn’t know what she’s doing. They’re standing naked in the bathroom facing each other, figuring it out as they go. He’s holding himself, presumably to keep from spilling, and it’s almost kind of sweet how he doesn’t want to mess this up for her.

Almost.

Quinn steps into the shower, turns around, and sits down. Unlike her companion, she’s in no hurry whatsoever. It takes a few tries to determine the optimum position, and the rubber mat is already scratching her skin. She grabs the corner and removes it with a loud ripping sound, pushing it off to the side, and settles back in.

It’s her instinct to be on her knees like last time, but that put her too close to Puck’s body for comfort. This time, with a wall behind her, she selects to lean her back against it, spreading her legs with her feet flat on the floor and hands on her knees. It presents quite the view for _him_, she realizes, and it makes this look more sexual than she means it to be, but it also keeps her at maximum distance in a less submissive position. Her needs trump his. The view can simply be his reward for following instructions and agreeing to this in the first place.

Quinn tries not to feel self-conscious. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.

Puck steps up to the edge of the tub and assumes the position, one hand on his hip and the other ready to aim. He looks like he’ll need no wait time tonight.

“Not on my face,” Quinn says as firmly as she can, considering she’s shaking a bit. Puck’s body is blocking much of the bright overhead light, but she can see plenty. Too much. She closes her eyes and tries to go back to the place where everything is in her control, though it feels far away now. “Go slow,” she adds, for whatever it’s worth.

Puck nods in response, still looking down, and then Quinn hears the first small push, which stops as soon as it starts. It hits the inside edge of the tub quietly, then more soon follows, creating a steady flow aimed at the shower floor. The percussive tones change as it moves, rising as the distance closes.

He lifts to strike her stomach first, and Quinn’s breath catches at the contact. It tickles—small vibrations against her sensitive skin—and she fights to keep from squirming in protest. Puck carefully moves the stream upward onto her breasts, and Quinn tilts her head back and to the side with an audible exhale.

It feels _amazing_.

“Yeah?” he asks sincerely.

She hums back in approval. The more she arches her back, pushing her chest toward the source of the warmth, the further she can raise her chin. Puck takes the hint and dares to inch up to her neck, and Quinn holds her head still to let him. She clamps her lips closed and keeps her face turned away as tiny splashes reach her cheeks, leaving a mist of drops Quinn’s not concerned with wiping away. She’s losing herself in the sensations, and all that matters now is that he _keeps going._

Traces of the smell finally arrive, but it’s much subtler this time. Quinn opens her mouth slightly to breathe through it and focus on the physical. He’s drawing circles around her nipples now or something similarly crass, maybe trying to write his name across the curves, but she’s happy to let him at this point. All the damp places on her body are cold and craving the return of the warm water, but he’s covering ground well and not keeping her waiting long.

A patch of her skin is sticking uncomfortably to the wall, so Quinn adjusts her back to free it. The motion spreads her legs a bit wider, and she leaves them there, feeling dirtier—_sexier_—in her new position. Puck takes it as an invitation and directs the stream downward, right _there_, and Quinn can’t help but react, both inside and out. As her body lifts off the floor, rising toward the source of the pleasure, she lets out a small laugh.

_I’m_ **_smiling_**.

_If only the Skanks could see me now._

And with that, Quinn realizes that _no one_’s seeing this. Somehow, she’s forgotten to invite her intended audience. The entire purpose, this opportunity, is going to waste. Rachel’s supposed to be here. She’s supposed to see what Quinn is doing to herself.

But Quinn is enjoying this so much, she forgot to be unhappy.

“Stop,” Quinn says, sitting up suddenly with her eyes still closed. She fights the urge to hold her hands out and grabs the wall and edge of the tub instead. “Just stop.”

He complies.

Quinn searches for Rachel’s face, but there’s only darkness.

_Where are you?_

“What?” Puck asks but complies with the command all the same. His voice is strained.

Quinn waves both her hands, beckoning him frantically to read her mind and come closer.

“In?”

She nods, more hesitantly than she means to, and brings her knees together to make space. In the darkness, she can hear him step into the tub with a loud squeak, and he almost slips on the wet floor before catching his balance. There isn’t much room; his feet find space to stand, putting one knee on either side of hers. Puck isn’t particularly tall, but he’s high enough above her for this to work. Quinn leans forward until her head is directly underneath him and closes her eyes even tighter.

“Okay,” she says.

It takes a moment, but then she once again feels the rush of warm liquid against her scalp as it makes it way down her ears, neck, and hair. Quinn can sense the strong thighs mere inches from her face, asserting their dominance. The whole scene makes her feel so, so small. Trapped. Insignificant.

And in a flash, the legs are Rachel’s. Surrounding her, reigning over her. It’s Rachel’s body heat radiating against her skin; it’s Rachel’s shadow casting her in darkness. Quinn’s mind traces the source of the stream that’s soaking her hair, trailing up, up, up those smooth, strong, beautiful legs until her mind short-circuits. The vision of Rachel from this angle below—Quinn’s face _right here_, able to feel the closeness—is too much.

_“I thought you wanted all of me,”_ Rachel says, looking down at her condescendingly. _“Maybe you just want the things my body doesn’t want anymore. I guess that really is all you deserve.”_ She lets the words trickle down into Quinn’s ears, carried by faintly yellow drops, then adds, _“I feel sorry for you.”_

Quinn’s breath catches in her chest, and the muscles between her legs tighten similarly.

_“I offered you forgiveness, but you wanted this instead. If this is what you need to fill up the emptiness inside you, Quinn, then fine. Be a pathetic loser.”_

The words are humming along her skin in the steadiness of the stream, coating her in a layer of filth and shame. The warmth running down her back isn’t letting up, and neither is Rachel’s condescension. Quinn isn’t sure which is more intoxicating. It doesn’t matter.

_“I wanted to be your friend. I offered you something real. But I guess you didn’t want something real with me, did you? So, this is all you’ll get from me now, Quinn. You asked for it.”_

There’s wetness between Quinn’s legs, but it’s not from what’s falling above.

Rachel’s final words are simple and sad. “_Take it.”_

Quinn moans and tilts her head back, and suddenly there’s hot pressure on her forehead, running down her face, covering her red cheeks and closed eyes and pressed lips as it passes by. It’s pungent, and Quinn can’t breathe—or doesn’t dare to—but she doesn’t turn away.

In her mind, she’s looking up into Rachel’s brown eyes, her tongue pressed firmly against Rachel’s clit, working relentlessly as the piss flows behind it, safely out of reach.

It’s a test. Rachel is testing her. And Quinn isn’t going to give up now.

Ten seconds, twenty, thirty. She can take it.

Quinn isn’t going to fail this time, even if it kills her.

Finally, the pressure of the stream becomes intermittent and erratic, and when Quinn can’t hold her breath anymore, she leans her head down and gasps for air, letting the final traces land innocently on her shoulder blades. Panting, she pushes her dripping bangs out of the way and wipes her face on the driest parts of her arms that she can find. It takes a moment to steady herself and come back to reality, now that oxygen is properly circulating again. And unfortunately, reality has a boy in it. And that familiar back alley smell.

Puck steps out of the tub and shakes his dick, wiping his feet on the towel. He doesn’t seem to know what to say, but Quinn’s grateful for the silence. The last thing she needs right now is Captain Pornhub judging her for pushing sexual boundaries.

She pulls the shower curtain closed and turns on the faucet. It’s startlingly cold, and it takes longer than she’d like to reach a tolerable temperature.

“Towel’s out here,” Puck says. It sounds like he’s on the way out the door. He might as well be.

There isn’t anything in this bathroom for him. Anything at all.


	7. Chapter 7

Quinn spends the weekend not thinking about it.

She loiters at the mall with the Skanks all Saturday afternoon, looking for Rachel’s face each time a short brunette crosses her periphery. Not that Quinn wants to see Rachel. Not here, like this.

When she gets home, she punishes herself with an extra-long, scalding shower and makes herself stay on sore and tender knees even when the sting of the hot water becomes almost unbearable. Quinn holds her face directly into the shower stream, breathing carefully, with one hand on the safety bar and the other pumping pink silicone behind her.

She doesn’t deserve to touch herself today. Not when she’s lost in the warmth of the pressure on her face. Not when she’s fighting to keep from drowning in it. Not when she can hear Rachel’s voice standing over her, telling her how disgraceful she is for wanting these violations of nature on both ends of her body, how sad she is for needing so desperately to prove how far she’s fallen, and how dirty and broken she is, even if it bears no witnesses.

Because there’s no one else here, not really. The only person Quinn’s trying to convince is herself.

But she still imagines Rachel there because she _needs_ to, because if Quinn is her own judge and jury, then she has no excuse to stay like this. And she can’t go back now.

She pushes her hand harder, deeper in, and opens her mouth, letting her cheeks swell completely with water before spitting it back out, again and again and again, hoping these temporary fills can provide what she needs. Hoping, if just for a moment, to not feel so empty and hollow inside.

But they don’t, and she does.

********

_ [Things will never go our way in the end](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pk9K2dcLWA) _

Monday morning, Shelby Corcoran is there.

It’s hard to look at her. She’s the older version of Rachel, wiser from experience and calm in her confidence. Shelby is the one who was strong enough—mature enough, grown up enough—to be a mother to Quinn’s own child when she couldn’t. Shelby Corcoran represents everything Quinn will never have.

She scares the fucking shit out of her.

And yet here Shelby is, telling Quinn about how sad she has been in her life—sad without Rachel—constantly wondering what she’s doing. _“Walking through life searching for her face,”_ she says, as if Quinn isn’t already doing that, as if she doesn’t know what it’s like to feel that incompleteness. Shelby’s trying to relate, but she’s doing it in all the wrong ways, because she’s just reminding Quinn of yet another thing she doesn’t have. Another girl who will never love her the way she needs to be loved.

Their conversation is about Beth, and it isn’t, but only Quinn knows that.

********

[ _Everyone will go away in the end_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42h8VIajgG4)

[ _In the end, everything will go_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42h8VIajgG4)

On Tuesday, Quinn makes Sue’s stupid movie.

It’s mostly scripted—quite terribly so—and hardly bears resemblance to the truth, save for one moment when Quinn gets to give Will Schuester a piece of her mind. She lays it all on him, dumping the heavy burdens of her guilt and failures onto his desk one at a time until he throws them back in her face.

She deserves it. Quinn deserves every bad thing that happens to her.

“There’s only one person in this world you care about,” he says, eyes blazing, “and that’s yourself.”

She braces at the comment, wounded, and quickly retreats to seek cover under the bleachers.

Maybe he believes what he said. Maybe he’s just angry and hurt and lashing out; there’s enough of that going around. Or maybe he’s doing some reverse psychology bullshit and calling her bluff, saying, ‘if this isn’t true, I challenge you to do something about it.’ To swallow her pride like she let this new identity swallow her life. Come crawling back to the people who never gave up on her the way she’s given up on herself.

But she doesn’t want to care what they think, she _doesn’t_. Caring has always been the problem. Try as she might, Quinn was never really like the other Skanks. And if she really _has_ embraced their apathetic mentality—if she doesn’t care what they think—then she has no reason to avoid Glee club. She could come scream punk rock anthems and be angry in her own way there, and set as many instruments on fire as her shriveled heart desires. Mr. Schue might let her if she was at least trying.

But if this costume is a lie—if she keeps her distance from Glee because of her _feelings_, or because she’s scared of their love—then she’s only proving Mr. Schue was right.

She loses either way. She should’ve seen this coming.

She knew that video was a terrible fucking idea.

********

_ [If there’s a shadow in me, the dark is a tidal wave inside of you](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLvE205aLoA) _

Quinn manages to avoid Puck until Wednesday. He comes looking for her in the girls’ bathroom by the cafeteria during third period. She’s there, just fixing her eyeliner, but it bothers her that Puck has this association with her now. Or maybe that she has it with him.

This was always her and Rachel’s bathroom. This is where they really connected last year. They cried at Prom here. Quinn slapped her here.

Maybe that’s why she keeps coming back. This is the place where Quinn first lost control of her feelings for Rachel. Maybe she thinks by returning, she’ll find it again. But all that’s here are empty lipstick containers, some stray liner wrappers, and the memory of when Rachel told her she was the prettiest girl she knew.

Not that Quinn’s thinking about that.

“I saw Beth,” he says in a condescending tone that finishes the sentence for him, the unspoken “_and you would’ve too, if you didn’t suck so much.”_

_Oh._

Quinn’s mind spins as she steels her expression, not giving anything away. Not to him, not in here. Not anymore.

His mouth keeps moving, and Quinn’s resolve grows thicker with each word. He’s pressuring her to de-Skank and change back, just like everyone else in her life has been doing this whole time. Like it’s some switch she can flip and suddenly not hate herself anymore. Like she hasn’t fucking _tried_.

Like they actually cared about that version of her in the first place.

_Rachel did_, she thinks, then chastises herself. It’s weakness, and Skanks don’t show weakness, or affection. Quinn knows better than to let herself go there. At least Puck always had a soft spot for her, both then and now—

“I don’t _care_ about you,” Puck spits.

The air catches in her lungs, trapped as her muscles tighten. Quinn flinches at the strike, not imperceptibly enough, and feels the walls hardening around her yet again. After sharing her barest side with him—literally and figuratively—she hadn’t expected him to be so cold.

But then, maybe this is just her fate. Never touched by the one she loves, and never loved by the ones who touch her.

No wonder Puck agreed to piss all over her. He objectified her like any other boy would. She’s disposable, just another set of tits and ass. But whatever, it’s not like she hasn’t treated him the same way. They use each other; it’s consensual. And lately she’s been asking him to do some real live porn stuff, and he should be fucking grateful, not an asshole. But he _is_ an asshole and this _hurts_.

He finishes his sentence—“I care about _her_.”

Like she doesn’t? Quinn’s not a bad mother, she just never had the chance to do it right. He knows that.

The arguments fill her throat but she swallows them back, shuts up, and takes it. She can cry ‘foul play’ all she wants, but she had this coming. Letting in that pain and owning it is what set her on this path in the first place. Only, now she knows once and for all that she’s on that path alone, and she always was.


	8. Chapter 8

**I’m coming over later. Be ready.**

Quinn texts him the following afternoon, sending out her beacon like the warning that it is. It’s not a question, or a request.

An hour later, there’s a faint vibration in the canvas bag on the couch under the bleachers. Quinn reaches for it as nonchalantly as possible.

**Sorry busy**, he says.

She takes a deep breath and exhales frustration before bringing the cigarette back to her lips. Quinn’s losing grip on the situation.

**Friday, then**, she replies. **I’ll be there at 9.**

She puts the phone away definitively and returns to not listening to Mack brag about her latest truck stop exploit. The grunting noises almost cover up the quiet buzz of rejection that Quinn can sense without having to see it. She looks anyway.

**I dont think we should do this anymore**

**It feels wrong**

Quinn’s pulse pounds in her ears, loud drums raging in deafening tones. She’s not about to get an ethics lesson from the guy who’s slept with half the moms in Lima.

**You said you liked it**, she replies. **You said it was hot.**

The response comes quicker this time. **Yeah and then I saw Beth and I just think we should do better u no?**

Then comes the slap in the face.

**U said it helped but I think its making u worse**

She bites hard on the inside of her cheek to fight against the stinging in her eyes. Puck isn’t just judging her on morality and parenthood, he’s judging her identity. Because he’s such a fucking role model of a father and human being. Like he’s even done one goddamn thing for Beth this whole time. Like he’s the bigger, better person here.

Now he’s using their own daughter as leverage against her.

But Puck just wants to make Quinn feel like shit. To make her feel ashamed. She wasn’t good enough to be Beth’s mother, and now she’s a dirty piss whore who better clean up her act if she ever wants a chance to even _see_ her daughter again? Is that really his angle? If he felt this way about what they’ve been doing, why did he agree to do it to her in the first place? Just to have the moral high ground later on in a bullshit change of heart? Is he not as complicit in this as she is?

And what the fuck does he mean, “_making her worse_”?

_Fuck you, Puck._

Quinn picks up her phone and types, **Like either of us ever deserved her, anyway**, sends, and turns it off. She’s halfway to the building before Ronnie and Sheila catch up with her. It’s almost the end of fifth period; there’s still time before she has to face her empty house and her clueless mother.

After half an hour of giving swirlies and taking money with the Skanks, Quinn tells herself she feels better, but she doesn’t.

Puck’s thorned words are rattling around in her gut, cutting her open and denying her any peace. It’s burning her up inside that she has to play by Shelby Corcoran’s rules to see her own fucking child. Jumping through these bullshit hoops. Shelby’s supposed to be the cool and collected, older Rachel, but this power trip doesn’t resemble her at all.

Rachel isn’t asking Quinn to change. Not the real Rachel, anyway.

And Quinn _could_ change; she knows deep down that she could, at least to move away from the Skanks. Toward what, she doesn’t know. But she could let this black and pink suit of armor go. She would choose Beth if she had to. But she doesn’t _want_ to have to choose. She’s worked so goddamn hard to prove herself to everyone that going back would make her even more of a joke than she is now. She could change, but what’s the point?

She’ll never be Beth’s mother, not in the way that Beth needs her to be.

And no amount of change could win Rachel. She doesn’t like girls like that, and she could never like Quinn like that. Rachel can’t change for _her_, either.

That may be what stings more than anything. If she thought it would make a fucking difference, Quinn would do it all—burn the bleacher couch, call the cops on her friends, crawl back to the stupid Cheerios, even rejoin Glee club if that’s what it took. Whatever Rachel asked. Anything for her.

Later that night, she’s lying flat on the shower floor. The detachable shower head hovers dangerously close to her face as she masturbates. It’s hard to breathe, but that only strengthens the lie of her fantasy. Rachel’s on her knees, straddled and lowered into Quinn’s mouth, moans echoing off the walls. Quinn can hear them so clearly; she can taste the salt against her tongue. Her knees tense and flex at the thought of Rachel’s piss running down her chin and chest as Quinn sucks her clit.

_“I told you to hold it,”_ Quinn says, pulling harder with firm lips to punish her.

Rachel cries out, arms trembling to hold herself up against the sides of the tub. “_I can’t…god…”_

Quinn’s body bucks hard as she comes, and she almost hits herself in the face with the shower head. Sitting up and blinking against the light, Quinn wipes the water from her eyes and casually moves the hot streams across her body, tracing paths across her chest and stomach.

Puck can judge her all he wants, but she can’t deny it—she likes this dirty new thing. It’s a clean dirty. Hell, half the time it’s not even real. And it’s not hurting anyone, least of all Beth, for Christ’s sake.

She thinks about how the visions have changed, how Rachel isn’t crying and walking out anymore or telling her what a terrible person she is. They’re touching again, connecting again, feeling pleasure together again. That has to mean something, right—that finding this pleasure helps Quinn hates herself a little less?

It _is_ helping, she knows it, and she’s not going to walk away from it just because Puck doesn’t want to participate. Fuck him. He doesn’t have to know.

********

_ [Burning mud in my eyes, blinding me from the truth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE6pEHTXSDU) _

Friday morning, Quinn dresses for battle in her best lesbian flannel and finds a moment alone with Shelby in her classroom after third period. She strolls in casually, cool and disaffected, armed with the unchanging fact that she is and will always be Beth’s birth mother. Given the pain Shelby’s gone through with Rachel, if anyone can appreciate the bond between Beth and Quinn, it’s her. This power play won’t last the day.

But then Quinn feels her armor pierced as Shelby fires back with her own truths, as if Quinn’s vulnerabilities were there on display all along.

“I know what happened to you,” Shelby says. “The same thing happened to me when I gave up Rachel.”

Quinn’s mind flashes at the double meaning but quickly recovers. Her first steps down this lonely path were mere weeks after Rachel declared to the world—or, an auditorium, at least—that she loved Finn. That’s when Quinn officially turned off the part of her heart that wanted to be loved. But Shelby can’t know that.

Unless Puck told her.

_Fuck you, Puck._

Quinn goes along for the ride of Shelby’s story, nodding along with the waves and smiling faintly at her jokes. She takes deep, steadying breaths, because this lecture to turn her life around, these fucking words of wisdom chipping away at Quinn’s borders, they’re hitting her harder than she anticipated.

“How much of yourself will you give up for them?” Shelby proposes_._

Quinn braces, grasping to stay on the offensive, but this is the very question she’s been struggling with, and she’s quickly outmatched and tripping over her own words. “Yeah, well, I’m not going to back to being that girl.”

But Shelby sees through her, because the Skank Emperor was never wearing any clothes, and Quinn feeds her the same bullshit lie she feeds herself.

_Believe it_—_This is me. _

Shelby doesn’t.

There are more words hurled, and Quinn manages to duck most of them and hold back her emotions until after Shelby’s put away the fucking perfect picture of Beth and Puck that Quinn’s noticeably not in, and left the room. Still, the weight of that image doesn’t burden her as much as the words did. Three words that sliced through her skin and took hold just outside her ribcage. Quinn can feel them with every heartbeat and breath she takes for the rest of the day.

“_Stop punishing yourself.”_

It’s all Quinn’s done for months now. It comes as naturally to her as breathing. But maybe, just maybe, this is advice she should take. She took all her frustration at Rachel out on herself, but she was only making everything worse. She knows it. Her torn skin knows it. Her clouded lungs know it.

Still, Quinn’s too scared to stop fighting. She doesn’t know _how _to stop fighting. But it’s time to put her efforts to better use.

Now, she can fight Shelby.

Oh yes, Quinn can burn this woman to the ground, burn the living effigy of her pain—a grown Rachel who never needed Quinn to be happy or successful or loved. Quinn can take the most important thing away from her and let that give her own life meaning again.

Even if it means burning down the straw girl she’s spent three months creating, giving Glee and Sue and Mr. Schue the satisfaction of knowing they were right about her all along. Even if selling Shelby out to CPS means revisiting Quinn’s own painful past, like remembering the home visits when her father would get too rough after drinking. She can only hope Beth will be too young to remember it.

It’ll come at a cost, but everything does. Quinn’s used to that. And Beth is worth it.

It’s not even a question. Perfection is worth any price.

Oh, this new plan is invigorating. Why punish herself when she can punish Shelby instead? Punish her for taking Quinn’s baby and fleeing the entire region. Punish her for withholding visitation of Quinn’s own fucking daughter over a fashion disagreement. Punish her for abandoning Rachel seventeen years ago, doing irreparable damage to that big, needy heart that only knows how to love Finn fucking Hudson.

Quinn turns up the music in her car as she peels out of the school parking lot. She’s going to fight someone other than herself, and that means, finally, she can win.

Maybe Shelby coming back wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

********

On Sunday, Quinn hangs out with the Skanks by the 7-Eleven one last time, sweet-talking the college boys into buying them beer. She sets up her friends with a twelve pack, bought with the money they collected on Friday, and then takes off without warning, following the blond guy home. He seems dumb and harmless enough. Sweet, even.

Like Finn.

They reach the frat house after ten minutes of walking and small talk, in which Quinn gives only lies or non-answers. She hasn’t looked at his face enough to learn it. It’s cold for September, but the sight of red and yellow leaves lining the campus makes it bearable.

Once inside and upstairs, she manages to reject his predictable advances long enough to strike a bargain. It takes her an hour and forty-five minutes to research and type an adequate five-page paper on the ethics of genetic profiling for his psych class, during which time he consumes three beers and four bottles of water.

As Quinn climbs into the cramped, single-occupant shower and kneels on the ground, she looks up, catching his eyes for the first time since arriving. Before he’s done unzipping his fly, she announces, “I made eight spelling errors, misquoted three science journals, and did the bibliography in the wrong format.” His face drops. “But I can fix it, _much_ faster than you can.”

“What the hell?” His hands drop away as his brow furrows. “I drank everything!”

“So give me what I want,” Quinn commands, then her eyes drop back to his open boxers. “Punish me and tell me I like it. Show me what a dirty little bitch I am. Make me believe it, and I’ll fix your paper.”

Quinn’s always in control now, even on her knees. She has the poor boy so intimidated, he looks afraid to withdraw his dick this close to such a dangerous creature.

As he carefully takes aim, she adds, “And say my name.”

There’s an awkward pause as he looks off to the side, clearly trying to remember what it might be. She never did tell him. But that’s not the name Quinn wants to hear right now, anyway.

“Rachel,” she says.

She manages to close her lips just in time to block the oncoming stream. Quinn’s eyes fall shut as she’s covered in warmth, dripping with danger as the words begin, and everything goes dark.

********

When Quinn showers afterward, there’s pink on the floor.

As she rinses away the terrible two-dollar shampoo, she realizes it’s not blood, it’s her hair dye. Not all of it, or even most of it, but it’s a sign nevertheless. Skank Quinn’s time is fleeting.

It seems fitting to leave her in this place, an anonymous body in the home of a stranger. This part of her was born in the bed of a boy she could never love, and now it’s rinsed down the drain, wisping trails like the blood he used to draw out of her.

The Skanks will wonder where their fallen member went, but they won’t know to look for her here. She’s safe. Now Quinn can become someone else.

_Repeat until clean._

It takes nine minutes to fix the boy’s paper, and Quinn hasn’t gotten dressed yet. Her eye catches a simple tee in a pile of clean but unfolded laundry near the door. Leaving her black garments on the ground in the bathroom, she slides her jeans back on and heads toward the heap of clothes. Pulling out the pastel yellow T-shirt, she turns it right-side out and slips it over her head easily. It’s big enough to hide in until she can get home. She’s out the door and gone before he has the chance to ask any questions.

A pile of crisp, fall leaves sits just outside on the sidewalk, directly in her path. It feels like another sign, and Quinn steps through them confidently with a smirk on her face.

Yellow always was her best color.

She doesn’t need Puck in order to get what she wants; she doesn’t need the Skanks or anyone else. There’s a whole world out there of people who don’t know shit about her and have no leverage. Toying with college boys feels dangerous, and she likes it.

Hell, it feels _liberating_.

She isn’t out of options. If she can suffer through the painful transition period and push onward through the shit, there’s a way to get everything she wants.

Well, okay. Not everything.

But it’s still a start.


	9. Chapter 9

_ [I’ve been out of my mind,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHl3Qri04wk) _

_ [I’ve been dreaming things and scheming things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHl3Qri04wk) _

Quinn hates the taste of pride slowly making its way down her throat.

She runs a hand through her newly de-pinked hair and utters the line she practiced in the car, making sure to sound non-threatening and bat her eyelashes as she asks to rejoin the biggest losers in McKinley.

It works.

Quinn strolls nervously onto the stage of Glee Club boot camp, wearing her most innocent white dress and smiling sheepishly with every step. They’re buying it, she can tell. Quinn just has to make sure she doesn’t start to believe the lie herself.

With a deep breath, she takes an open spot in the back. Right next to Puck.

“I’m proud of you,” he says.

Quinn’s sugar façade melts instantly with the turn of her head.

_Fuck you._

Yes, she’s willing to pretend to be the old Quinn that everyone so desperately wants to see roaming the school halls, and she tells him that. She’ll do it to get Beth back. But it’s all a lie. Everything about Quinn is a lie, everything except her love and her pain, and she isn’t showing either of those to anyone anymore. Certainly not to Puck.

She can do this. She can play this new role. And when she feels the emotions creeping in, when the acting starts to bleed into reality, Quinn will get on her knees in front of a stranger and take a new coat of pale yellow paint on her tired, trusty walls. Strengthening and reinforcing them. Reminding herself who she is—a bad girl with autonomy and secrets and power. The girl who no one truly understands, who trusts no one but herself.

It’ll work. It has to.

********

Tuesday morning, she finds another note in her locker.

_Quinn,_

_Sorry I missed your big return yesterday! Finn said you fit right in like you’d never left. I had no doubts, of course. I’m so pleased to hear the old Quinn is back, or whatever the new Quinn is. It’s going to be really nice to have you with us in the choir room. We’ve missed you._

_See you this afternoon,_

_Rachel_

Quinn’s eyes hover over the words repeatedly, taking in new phrases each time. They keep bouncing back and forth—_old Quinn…new Quinn…old Quinn...Finn…never left…Rachel…missed you_—as if the words in between carry no meaning of their own. It takes several minutes for Quinn’s mind to stop racing and take in the full sentences as intended. There is no malice, no threat, but the flimsy piece of folded college-rule paper is full of implication.

Rachel, sitting in class thinking about Quinn. Making the decision to commit those thoughts to form. Taking the time to write each word and carefully consider her language, as she’s approaching an ever-skittish cat who flees at the slightest sudden movement. Rachel, choosing to spend minutes of her life silently reveling in Quinn’s return. Walking to Quinn’s locker and, perhaps, waiting there to hand-deliver her message. Saving a special smile for their first conversation as reunited Glee Club members.

Quinn quickly folds the note back up again and shoves it in her bag before slamming her locker shut and storming off toward her first period class. She doesn’t want to waste any more time thinking about Rachel.

No, Quinn has vengeful sabotage to plan. How exciting that she may get to apply many of the criminal skills she picked up over the last two months—blackmail, breaking and entering, extortion, forgery—to get her daughter back. And in a strange way, bringing down Shelby Corcoran feels like bringing down Rachel Berry. Not _really_, of course. Just hurting her in a way that’s carefully controlled and managed, and doesn’t leave permanent marks. Hurt adjacent.

If anyone knows about intentionally crafted pain and punishment, it’s Quinn Fabray.

Maybe destroying Shelby’s life will be the straw that breaks Rachel’s spirit. Maybe Rachel will finally move on and leave Quinn the fuck alone. It’s going to be bad enough having to face Rachel taking credit for ‘bringing Quinn back to Glee’; it’s going to be bad enough spending five hours a week in the same room listening to incredible solos and righteous pep talks and watching the beautiful way Rachel cries when she sings. It’s going to be bad enough seeing her sit down front with Finn fucking Hudson’s arm around her.

The least Rachel could do is stop making Quinn feel like she’s worth something to her. Like Quinn’s worth saving, or whatever bullshit agenda Rachel has. Maybe Quinn will finally snap and tell her what she’s been doing in her spare time—that the only way she can bear to think about Rachel anymore is pissing all over her face. Or, more recently, imagining Rachel on her knees, down on Quinn’s level, trembling and gasping for air beside her at the frat house, or under her as Quinn does the deed herself. Rachel—soaked, covered, filthy.

That’s the Rachel she deserves.

Maybe this is who Quinn was supposed to become. A castaway, an infiltrator, a betrayed mother, a piss whore, a conflicted lesbian, an upper class pariah, a rejected skank, an Ivy League promise who’s broken all her others along the way. Quinn Fabray isn’t looking back, not anymore.

At 8pm, she closes the Amazon browser tab with a search for ‘baby sacrifice’ and slips on a light blue dress that reveals nothing. It still feels strange wearing colors again, but the costume makes the performance all the more fun. It’s a short drive to the barbecue place where the local fraternities will be gathering to watch the OSU game, and the beer and sodas will be flowing.

**Don’t forget we’re meeting at Shelby’s at 5 on Friday**, she texts to Puck before putting her car into gear. Retrieving a pack of Marlboro Lights from the glove compartment, Quinn pushes in the stock lighter. It’ll be ready to use by the time she makes the second left, she knows by now.

The rev of the motor drowns out the distant echo of Rachel’s promises, of Puck’s judgment, of Shelby’s ultimatums, of Glee’s fair-weather acceptance, her parents’ fighting, the Skanks’ anger, and the memory of Beth’s face, until two hours later when there’s only the simplicity of a warm stream on her face, the cleansing that it brings, and the power of her command.

“Man, Rachel,” the half-drunk boy says while ensuring no inch of Quinn’s skin is left unmarked, “You’re kinda scary, you know?”

And just for a moment, she smiles.


End file.
